The study of school preparedness in earthquake (Studying of high school in Shiraz city)

Earthquake as one of the natural disasters has caused many problems in our country. The Japan International Cooperation Agency has stated that disasters have a serious impact on educational services not only because for the loss of the lives of teachers and students, but also in many other ways such as the sudden interruption of the educational process and psychological disruption of students. So, it is necessary to be prepared for these events.
This research was done with purpose to determine how well the schools were prepared for a prospective earthquake disaster. The study was descriptive and the samples of the research have comprised all the principals of middle schools in Shiraz city, Crisis experts and scholars. Two questionnaires were used in this study AHP and school preparedness. AHP questionnaire has measured the priority of three main fields of school preparedness which were emergency plans, emergency operations and emergency resources. Another has evaluated the readiness range of the schools to counter earthquake threat by the 36 specific questions. The research questions were answered by means of t-test, Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman test according to parametric or non-parametric situations.
Findings: The data analysis has revealed that emergency plans had the most importance and emergency operations had the least one among main fields. Among schools, 6.9% had very high, 32.7% had high, 29.7% had moderate, 22.8% had low, and 9.7% had very low preparedness against earthquake.
The preparedness level of the Shiraz schools had been evaluated moderate. This preparedness level regarding to serious risk of earthquake is not appropriate.