Post-disaster Condition

At the end of this step, the team should be able to do the following:
a) Identify the policy framework that will guide the reconstruction of affected schools
b) Identify key decisions makers involved in school infrastructure reconstruction
c) Identify ongoing or prospective school infrastructure plans in the affected area
d) Identify school infrastructure capacity in the affected area.

Local partners and technical expertise

The table below presents a list of suggested local partners and technical expertise required to contribute to or lead the activities of this step.

Module 2.1. Government’s School Infrastructure Policy

Activities under this module will facilitate the understanding of the infrastructure requirements of the education policies and the ongoing interventions, as well as the identification of key players.

Activity 2.1.1. Identify infrastructure requirements based on the current education policy framework                                                 

This activity involves reviewing the current education policy and implications for school infrastructure nationwide. Education policy drives the condition and capacity requirements school infrastructure must meet to provide a satisfactory level of service. A familiarity with key aspects of policy is needed for task teams to identify school infrastructure requirements and priorities to include in the plan. The teams need to understand the country’s education system, service structure (for example, education levels), national policies and programs, and expected medium- and long-term outcomes. An education specialist with local knowledge will help the teams collect more detailed information, such as coverage per education level, number of shifts, types of services provided by school facilities, and government’s policy priorities and targets. 

Guidance:

While the RSRS emphasizes safety conditions, it recognizes the importance of also addressing functionality and capacity needs. This activity, like other steps under the RSRS, will provide opportunities for the task teams to diagnose and analyze the needs for improvement in condition and capacity, which can also be included in the plan. Since, as mentioned, implementation of the RSRS is flexible and can be tailored to address the needs of the government, the scope of the plan can be customized as needed. 

While the link between education policy and the guidance of school infrastructure is clear, challenges arise in large portfolios. Considerable effort will be needed to adapt large portfolios of existing school infrastructure to new requirements imposed by changes in policy. Changes in regulation, allocation of additional resources in a budget-constrained environment, and restructuring of ongoing programs will be required to ensure a thoroughly planned process for nationwide implementation that will meet targets defined by the government and the education sector. This effort may also impose new intervention requirements on school facilities that may already have pending interventions to complete. The trend, for instance, toward adopting the one-shift policy in many developing countries is necessitating an increase of 50 percent or more in existing school infrastructure capacity. Another example of a requirement with an impact on the school infrastructure is the use of IT in the education process.

Throughout the implementation of the RSRS, it’s important for task teams to identify key areas to discuss with decision makers. Once familiar with the education policies, the team should be able, based on the results of the analysis phase, to propose realistic targets to be incorporated in the plan and to have an informed discussion with decision makers. 

In countries experiencing significant gaps in education coverage, decision makers are reluctant to allocate resources to improve the condition of existing infrastructure—even if prompted by education policy. Education and school infrastructure policy in developing countries tend to be disconnected. Often, education policy is updated, while school infrastructure policy remains in the past century. The RSRS strives to overcome this by inviting the participation of key stakeholders and providing a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to address this challenge. 

Time constraints will make it difficult to carry out this activity fully in a post-disaster context. Ideally, it should be conducted to inform the process and ensure the reconstruction of school infrastructure is in line with the sector policies. Based on our experience, however, this is easier said than done. When challenges arise, task teams should focus on understanding the current education policy framework and establish a checklist identifying the key requirements with which reconstruction interventions must comply. 

Activity 2.1.2. Identify ongoing school infrastructure plans    

This activity looks at ongoing school infrastructure plans or programs at national and subnational levels. As part of the diagnosis phase, it is important to identify and map out all ongoing school infrastructure plans or programs managed by the central and/or local governments, as well as other relevant players. Additional information on the scope, structure, and implementation of ongoing programs can provide a glimpse into the sector’s infrastructure management capacity.

Guidance:

Task teams should concentrate on understanding the programs’ general structure, scope, progress, results, beneficiaries, involved agencies, time frame, and so on. The allocation of resources financing these programs will be further analyzed in step 4. 

The information relevant to ongoing intervention plans may be scattered or restricted in countries with decentralized school systems. In these cases, consultations with local agencies or authorities will be important to help complement the analysis. Before undertaking such consultations, task teams should also determine whether additional information is required from the local level for steps 3 and 4. Additionally, we recommend task teams conduct field visits with the support of relevant government agencies to school sites with ongoing interventions. These visits are a good way to learn about the process and approach being used in the construction of school buildings and related interventions. Task teams can also gain valuable insight into the dynamics of local schools by interacting with school principals and communities. 

Programs receiving international support must also be identified and considered. These should be formal, existing programs approved by the government or sector that are receiving technical or financial support from IFIs and development partners. These types of programs are generally well documented and should have information available. It will be useful to receive input from these agencies regarding the challenges encountered during implementation. Isolated pilot interventions are not included in the analysis.

This activity relates only to ongoing projects that are disrupted by a disaster. In the aftermath of a disaster, ongoing school infrastructure plans are put on hold in the affected areas. Part of the planning process is to evaluate whether reconstruction activities can be carried out through existing plans or integrated into the reconstruction plan. The latter is more likely to happen. In this instance, the capacity and resources in place before the disaster are crucial to the reconstruction process.

Activity 2.1.3. Map the institutional framework and identify key decision makers

The aim of this activity is to map the institutional school infrastructure management framework and identify key decision makers. The institutional framework refers to the formal organizational structure and rules governing how the ministry of education, local governments, or other relevant agencies manage school infrastructure. Task teams should do a stakeholder mapping and describe the interdependencies within the ministry of education, as well as within other agencies, such as the ministries of economy and finance and of public works, and local governments, among others, that can have a role in managing school infrastructure.

Guidance: 

This activity includes reviewing the legal documentation and operating regulations associated with the institutional framework at all levels of government. Identifying the standards and regulations that govern school infrastructure is an important part of the diagnosis phase. Task teams should also identify areas where institutional gaps, overlapping roles, or duplication of efforts may occur and provide recommendations for improvement. The results of this activity will also be used to inform the definition of the plan’s legal and institutional framework in step 6. 

School principals are also key players and decision makers. Their roles may vary from country to country, but principals know the school facility dynamics better than anyone, given their direct role in managing their schools and all related needs. Task teams should identify and map principals’ specific roles with respect to infrastructure and any intervention planning and understand their level of autonomy and interaction with the different levels of government. A conversation with several principals would provide firsthand knowledge about actual operations at the level of the school facility.

Contributions to school infrastructure by nongovernmental organizations and donors can only be part of the analysis if they are being coordinated by the government. In countries highly dependent on external aid and support from donors or nongovernmental organizations, it is important for the plan to guide these contributions and also to build the institutional capacity of the government and the sector to reduce that dependency over time. 

The role of institutions and local governments might change in post-disaster conditions as a result of special reconstruction arrangements. In large disasters, the usual approach taken by government is to centralize reconstruction management, either through a dedicated agency, with a special statute to accelerate the reconstruction process, or an existing agency or ministry. In such cases, the education sector will have an additional “layer” within the institutional structure with which to coordinate. In the case of local governments, the reconstruction agency generally takes over some tasks (at least temporarily) as well as decision making at the local level. For the implementation of the RSRS, we advocate the use of the existing institutional structure for the reconstruction process. These decisions are, however, determined at the highest levels of government. Whatever the arrangement set up by the government, task teams should become familiar with it and determine its implications for school reconstruction.

Module 2.2. Current and projected school infrastructure capacity

Through this module, task teams will learn about the current capacity of the school infrastructure and estimate expected demand in the medium term.

Activity 2.2.1. Identify the current capacity of school infrastructure    

The purpose of this activity is to estimate the current capacity and occupancy of school infrastructure. As previously mentioned, “design capacity” refers to the number of students a school facility was designed to accommodate in classrooms in a single shift, in line with regulatory provisions. This means the school facility offers the appropriate number and sizes of classrooms, laboratories, bathrooms, equipment, and recreational areas. Countries with low school infrastructure capacity operate their schools in more than one shift. “Occupancy” refers to the actual number of students using a given school facility in one or more shifts. The ratio of occupancy to design capacity, or occupancy index (OI), can be used as a metric to identify either underused (OI ≤ 1) or overcrowded (OI ≥ 1) school facilities. The aggregate design capacity of school facilities within a territory (such as a country, region, or municipality) defines the capacity of school infrastructure for that territory. 

More broadly, design capacity can be understood as the ratio of school building surface area to area per student. The area per student (that is, m2/student) is a basic school design provision that varies by education grade level. Occupancy, on the other hand, is estimated from the enrollment data. This information can normally be found in the education information management system; if not, it should be collected along with the baseline data in step 1.

Guidance:

The analysis of school infrastructure capacity must include disaggregated figures by education level, urban versus rural distribution, regions, municipalities, and so on. Just as the population is not uniformly distributed within a country, neither is school infrastructure. For this reason, the generation of information and maps showing the school capacity distribution across a country or municipality is particularly useful. Task teams can learn about the differences and needs in demand within a territory by dividing capacity into the different education levels.

Other services can also be associated with school infrastructure capacity, like boarding school or special education. Given that these services tend to be marginal in large portfolios, they can be integrated at a national level if the baseline’s resolution is high enough. Otherwise, their inclusion has to be addressed at a municipal level.

Knowledge of the pre-disaster school capacity in the affected area is a priority, as it will help quantify both the impact of the disaster on the level of service (the loss of capacity) and remaining capacity to relocate students temporarily. If the school capacity and occupancy prior to the disaster is known, this information can complement the post-disaster damage assessment (see step 1). If the information is not available, it should be collected as part of the damage assessment. This can make it easier to estimate the remaining classroom capacity in each school facility and associated geographical distribution, which will be a primary input for the recovery plan. While temporary relocation of students is possible in urban areas within the framework of a recovery plan, accessibility and transportation time constraints may render this option infeasible in rural areas. In large-scale disasters this activity is resource intensive, as the analysis is conducted on a facility by facility basis, along with the damage assessment.

Activity 2.2.2. Estimate current and new demand for classrooms    

This activity focuses on quantifying the current demand for classrooms and expected changes resulting from demographic trends. Estimating the current demand is based on the analysis of a number of parameters that include school enrollment (both public and private), school dropout data, and school-age population. In addition to demographic shifts, fluctuations in public school demand over time can be attributed to changes in household preference for public or private education due to improved socioeconomic conditions, among other factors. To date, we have primarily used in our analysis the demographic shifts and the share of school-aged population attending private education as the factors that affect public school demand. 

Guidance: 

The analysis should be conducted by education level. The RSRS proposes to calculate the demand within a given education level by estimating the number of students of a corresponding age group who are expected to attend schools in the public system. The current coverage can then be estimated in terms of the number of students who are actually enrolled and attending the public education system as a share of the demand.

Aligning classroom supply and demand in the long term is central to school infrastructure planning. Decreasing demand, which seems to be the case in several countries and regions, will call for medium- and longer-term planning for an intervention strategy and required investments that is very different than for growing demand (see the example of Cali). The dynamic nature of the main drivers of demand (changing demographic trends, education policies, and socioeconomic conditions) can add a layer of complexity to the analysis. A medium-term plan (for example, over a period of 10 to 12 years) should take into account expected changes in these variables. During implementation, we recommend the government entity in charge of managing school infrastructure keep track of major changes and update the plan, as needed.

The information required to conduct this analysis is not always easily available. In most cases, census data and information on migration flows, for example, are either undated or do not contain the level of detail required. Since the objective is to identify trends over time rather than obtain absolute figures, the analysis should be based on the most up-to-date information available and include expert advice to guide the development of proxies, if needed. Since the results of this analysis will inform activities under the planning-at-scale phase (steps 6-8), it’s important for task teams to understand their implications and outcomes.

The reconstruction of schools provides an opportunity to overcome location, condition, and capacity issues. School reconstruction must first take into account the improvement of school building performance against future hazard events. The analysis described above is not expected to take place in post-disaster conditions. Task teams should, however, seek the advice of experts to discuss and decide whether the capacity of the infrastructure to be reconstructed needs to be adjusted. The reconstruction process can, for example, provide an opportunity to merge schools with low OI to optimize the use of the school network.

Output

The completion of activities under each module will result in one or more output(s).