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Summary

This document is a collection of case studies of a study on Safer School Policy Landscape in the context of post-earthquake to develop a Policy Brief. The document includes a review of legislation, policies, and strategies related to the education sector, focused group discussions with school-going children as well as with members of school management committees (SMCs), parent-teacher associations (PTAs), education working groups, and the education cluster; and key informant interviews with government officials at the center as well as in the district education offices of Makwanpur, Sindhupalchock, Dolakha and Kathmandu.

The findings of the study include the physical, psychological and impacts of the earthquake on education, the impediment to education quality, gaps in the existing education policies to meet the DRR needs, and the physical infrastructural gap in school buildings construction, along with the gaps in a non-structural component such as co-curricular activities, capacity building, knowledge management, Policy advocacy, and campaigning needs. It further talks about the way forward to ensure the safety and quality of education such as the need to: Develop common understandings on the safe school concept, Make a balance of software and hardware components, Increase the participation of SMCs and PTAs in safe school initiatives, Support to simplify the Building Codes and Standards, Develop curriculum and textbook that foster DRR knowledge, Impart capacity building initiatives, Run co-curricular activities at schools, Provision of DRR focal teacher at school, Improve safety elements in the school, Carry out thorough assessment for retrofitting technologies, and Mainstream DRR in education policy provisions.