Knowledge Resources for Comprehensive School Safety and Security in India

This issue of Southasiadisasters.net is titled "Knowledge Resources for Comprehensive School Safety and Security in India". It focuses on the innovations in service delivery and the lessons learnt in carrying out the Comprehensive School Safety and Security Programme (CSSSP) in India. A collaboration between UNICEF and many state governments, the CSSSP is unique as it has focused not only on addressing disaster risk reduction (DRR) concerns but also child protection concerns.

As the CSSSP has been rolled out in 5 states of India, a lot of lessons on programme design, delivery, stakeholder management, scaling-up and sustainability have been learnt. This issue is a compendium of such lessons that have been captured as knowledge resources to aid other government and non-government actors who intend to start similar programmes in India to improve the safety and security of it's children.

India is home to 1.5 million schools with more than 250 million students, making it a country with one of the highest number of students in the world. It is a well-known fact that India's vulnerability to natural hazards cascades down to its schools and adversely affects the safety and security of its school going children. Apart from natural hazards, the risk of violence, sexual abuse, exploitation and neglect also loom large on these children. In order to protect this large part of its demographic from various risks, many school safety initiatives have been launched in India.