Exploring minimum essentials for sustainable school disaster preparedness: A case of elementary schools in Banda Aceh City, Indonesia

The study assesses the safety of school against tsunami disaster of public elementary schools in Banda Aceh City, Indonesia, in terms of safety of school location, disaster management and disaster education. The findings indicate that 56% of public elementary schools in Banda Aceh City are exposed to high tsunami risk, and most externally driven school disaster preparedness activities were not continued by the schools due to lack of ownership, institutional arrangement and funding. The study proposes the minimum essentials to reactivate school disaster preparedness activities and strongly recommends the local government's policy support for ensuring a city-wide, all-schools implementation. These essentials should include an annual school plan that involves conducting a tsunami evacuation drill at least once per year and a school budget for conducting disaster preparedness activities. To ensure smooth implementation, the Education Agency Circular Letter should provide justification for all headmasters to include these components in the schools’ annual plans. It also recommends that external parties who donate or provide physical equipment (e.g., tsunami evacuation routes or maps) should consider deliver and quality of the material to meet the national guidelines, as well as the recipient schools to be fully involved in equipment maintenance.