In case of major disasters like earthquake, a large number of Nepal’s school buildings will collapse. According to a recent study, Kathmandu valley’s 50 percent schools are vulnerable to disaster.

At the function organized by Save the Children, various stakeholders and speakers highlighted the National Workshop on School Safety and state of schools. Last year, many school buildings collapsed in the eastern region when an earthquake of magnitude of 6.9 Richter scale hit the area.

Pamela Meston of Save the Children highlighted the importance of school safety measures in the country like Nepal. “Nepal needs to take certain drastic steps to make school buildings are disaster safe,” said Matson.

According to a study, amongst all the public facilities, children in schools are the most vulnerable groups during any disaster. “It has already been proven that during disasters schools and school children are the most affected,” said Meston.

Schools, if better prepared for disasters, can also play a lead role in the community responding to disasters.

“Nepal has made certain progress but it has yet to improve the school buildings prone to disasters,” said Overtoun Mgemezulu from UNICEF.

Participated in by various stake holders including the representatives from Nepal Red Cross, community schools, ECHO, Department of Education, NSET and other stake holders, the discussions were held on the assessment made to make the school buildings resistance to the disaster.