An assessment of disaster preparedness in tertiary colleges: the case of Thika Town in Kenya

Abstract

The background to the study captures the disaster situation globally, regionally and locally. Over the world, disasters have wrecked havoc to developmental gains spanning for many years in the history of many countries. Disaster preparedness involves the education and training of officials and the population at risk, the training of intervention teams, and the establishment of policies, standards, organizational arrgngements and operational plans to be applied following a disaster. Kenya's disaster profile is dominated by droughts, fire, floods, terrorism, technological accidents, diseases and epidemics that disrupt people's livelihoods, destroy the infrastructure, divert planned use of resources, interrupt economic activities and retard development. Kenya has continued to face a rising degree of vulnerability to disaster risk. The statement of the problem tries to paint a picture of the high disaster vulnerability levels of tertiary colleges in Kenya and specifically in Thika Town. It would be expected that a community that has lived through disaster would learn from the experience and thus be better prepared if faced with a similar situation. In Kenya, there have been numerous risks and losses resulting from lack of disaster preparedness among the victims. The researcher aimed to fill the existing gap by carrying out a study on the level of disaster preparedness among tertiary colleges in Kenya with a focus on Thika Town in Kiambu County. The purpose of the study was to establish the level of disaster preparedness among tertiary colleges in Kenya where the focus was on the Colleges in Thika Town in Kiambu County. The research objectives were to assess the availability of disaster management equipments, to determine the level of disaster management training, to determine the level of compliance to disaster management policies and to find out the nature of disaster response mechanisms put in place in tertiary colleges in Thika. The research design was a cross sectional descriptive study. The target population was 800 staff, the college students' representatives and the staff working with government authorities such as Thika Municipal Council, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Special Programs. A sample of 20% (160 sample respondents) from within each group in proportions was taken using stratified random sampling. The researcher collected both primary and secondary data. Pre-tested questionnaires were physically dropped at the respondents' place of work. Data collected was mainly quantitative and it was analyzed by descriptive analysis techniques. The descriptive statistical tools such as SPSS were used. The study concludes that there are disastrous occurrences that happen in the tertiary colleges. These disasters include fires disasters, collapse of buildings, diseases and epidemics and terrorism attacks where floods are rarely experienced. The study deduces that disaster management equipments influence the disaster preparedness in the institutions. There is high level of disaster management training for effective disaster preparedness among the tertiary colleges. Disaster management policies determine the extent to which the institutions are able to respond to various disasters. The study thus recommends that preparedness efforts must address all potential disaster events. It is important to engage multiple stakeholder groups in formulating metrics that they consider most appropriate. For effective disaster preparedness disaster the relevant stakeholders should be equipped with the relevant training to enhance their effectiveness in disaster preparedness. There is need to enhance the disaster management policies in order to create awareness of disaster preparedness and long term mitigation and strengthen disaster management institutions.