Lessons from COVID-19 in Disaster Preparedness: An Examination of Kenya’s Education Sector’s Disaster Response and Management Framework

Abstract

On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19). After reporting its first COVID-19 case on 12th March, 2020, Kenya closed down all its learning institutions on 15th March, 2020. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education (MoE) developed the Kenya basic education COVID-19 emergency plan to guide the response and management of COVID-19 pandemic in schools. In spite of this plan, schools in Kenya remained closed for the next six months, with devastating effects on the academic, physical, and psychosocial wellbeing of many learners. In addition, COVID-19 has continued to spread within learning institutions even after re-opening on 6th October, 2020. The purpose of this study was to examine the capacity of Kenya’s education sector in preventing, responding to and managing disease pandemics, such as the COVID-19. A desk review included the analysis of key national and education sector documents to determine how disease pandemics are categorised within Kenya’s education sector; the elements of Kenya’s education sector disease pandemic response and management framework; the capacity levels of the Kenyan MoE’s disaster response and management (DRM) framework in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic; and recommendations to reinforce or redesign the MoE’s current DRM framework. This study was anchored on Wenger’s (2017) Prevent-Prepare-Respond-Recover framework which emphasises the aspects resilience and adaptability as key to an organisation’s ability to rise from a disaster, rebuild and transform itself for posterity. The Kenya’s Education Sector’s Disaster Response and Management 193 findings indicate that the element of ‘whole system planning’ with regards to DRM was strongly evident in several of the education sector documents, but challenges still persist in the aspects of anticipation, avoidance, accommodation, response, and recovery. Thus, the measures put in place to address disease pandemics appear to restore the status quo rather than enhance the education sector’s resilience and adaptability. Therefore, it was recommended that the MoE should place emphasis on whole system renewal and provide the requisite resources in order to strengthen its DRM framework; consequently, creating a transformational DRM system.