Jamaica Safer Schools Project

The Jamaica Safer Schools Project assisted the government of Jamaica in establishing a baseline to facilitate the mainstreaming of disaster risk management in the regulation, planning, design, construction, and management of school infrastructure, in tandem with the national education development plan. As part of this project, 972 public schools were assessed nationwide. The data collected about their physical condition were made available to the Ministry of Education to support and inform its planning and decision making. The World Bank also partnered with the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech, Ja), represented by its faculty of the built environment and faculty of engineering and computing.

Activities supported by the World Bank

• Updating of the baseline of existing school facilities through the improvement and completion of the Census of School Infrastructure with structural and functional data. This effort included recruiting and training students from Utech, Ja, to participate in the field inspections and developing and implementing a strategy for data collection nationwide. Analyzed and validated, these data were used in the development of a cost-benefit analysis and investment plan to inform future Ministry of Education investments

• Enhancement of the institutional capacity of the Ministry of Education and the National Education Trust to understand and use risk information in their decision-making processes

Main outputs

• Geographic information system (GIS) database with updated infrastructure information on schools in the national public school infrastructure

• Report on collection of Jamaica school inspection data