Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction
This resource, developed by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), provides comprehensive guidance to support the design, construction, and retrofitting of disaster-resilient school infrastructure. It responds to the increasing exposure of millions of children to natural hazards—such as earthquakes, floods, storms, landslides, and fires—and emphasizes the critical importance of making schools safe environments that protect lives while ensuring continuity of education. The guidance is aligned with global development priorities, including Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), highlighting that resilient school infrastructure is essential for both safety and long-term educational outcomes.
The document offers a practical and structured framework consisting of guiding principles, recommended steps, and basic design considerations for safer school construction and retrofitting. It outlines key processes such as stakeholder engagement, risk and hazard assessment, site selection, defining performance objectives, adopting building codes, and ensuring quality construction and maintenance. In addition, it provides technical design principles for addressing multiple hazards, along with tools such as checklists, case studies, and references to international standards. The guidance promotes a multi-hazard, context-specific approach, encouraging users to adapt strategies based on local risks, resources, and capacities.
Intended for policymakers, planners, engineers, architects, education authorities, NGOs, and community stakeholders, the resource emphasizes collaboration, community participation, and capacity building throughout the process. It highlights the role of schools not only as safe learning environments but also as community centers that support disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. By providing adaptable best practices and linking to further technical resources, this guidance serves as a practical tool to strengthen disaster risk reduction in the education sector and to promote safer, more resilient school systems worldwide.