Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies ... - Unicef

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Middle East and North Africa
Children participate in a group activity
during a life-skills peer education
session in Abu Tig in Egypt.
© UNICEF/NYHQ2011-1605/LeMoyne
students and the community at large. The curricula also seek
to develop and empower students’ life skills so they can cope
with different aspects of disasters and crises, whether natural
or human-induced.
The curricula also include definitions of disasters, disaster
management phases, and traditional and non-traditional
methods of treatments and solutions. They aim to develop
knowledge, attitude, skills and behaviour through active
learning and practices. The focus is primarily on earthquakes,
floods, fire, desertification, and road and railways accidents.
In the new basic education curricula (grades 1- 9), DRR is
covered in terms of knowledge and conceptual development
through different subjects: Science, History, Arabic, Social
Studies and Islamic Education. Several aspects of DRR are
covered by these subjects: security precautions and safety in
the case of earthquakes and volcanoes, preventive measures,
planning for a crisis, management, procedures to overcome
a crisis, preventive measures to reduce environmental risks,
deforestation, floods, excessive use of pesticides, air pollution,
natural reserves, clean energy, industrial waste, pollution,
non-renewable energy, drought, attrition, earthquakes, volcanoes,
hurricanes, water erosion (fluvial and marine), conflicts and
wars, declining health and social services, high population
density, high illiteracy rates.
Secondary education (grades 10-12) curricula are still under
development although they contain several manifestations of
DRR in subjects such as Environment and Geology, Geography
and History. The following are some of aspects of DRR that
are addressed: natural hazards, drought, desertification, floods,
hurricanes and storms, earthquakes and volcanoes, locusts,
insects, air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, population
increase, illegal Immigration, pollution of the environment,
deterioration of lakes, deforestation and marine pollution.
Pedagogy
In spite of the changes in the content of primary textbooks
with introduction of new curricula, the ways in which knowledge
and related student activities are presented are still traditional.
They remain teacher dependent (Centre for Curriculum and
Instructional Materials Development Centre, Ministry of
Education, 2011)
Teaching methods at the secondary level are even more
traditional. Students mainly focus on knowledge acquisition
and retention for high scores to go to University. Therefore
DRR domains and the other local and global issues included
in the secondary school curricula are tightly taught at the
knowledge level, ignoring the psychomotor (skills) and affective
(interests, attitudes) domains.
Student activities are carried out mainly in schools through
open discussion during lessons, communication channels
directed by the teacher in search of suggestions and solutions.
Some activities require searches on the internet (e.g., searches
for the consequences of industrial pollution). This means that
teacher is the hub of the learning process. This may be due to
the lack of teacher training programmes in psychomotor and
affective domains.
Learning may be more active in some private schools. For
example, a celebration of the International Day for Disaster
104
The National Reform Plan for Pre-University Education, 2007/8-2011/12,
www.moe.gov.eg
105
IDSC (the Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Centre. (2011).
Egypt Statement made at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/policies/
Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies from Thirty Countries