Preparedness Assessment toward Volcano Eruption : Case of Primary Schools in Merapi Area, Indonesia <Article>

The purpose of present study was to examine schools preparedness implementation in facing volcano eruption to clarify relationship between the risk level and the school preparedness of twenty-four selected primary schools in Merapi area, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This study adopted a descriptive survey design based on the data of self-rated questionnaires distributed to participant headmasters. The major findings showed that, in general, the schools preparedness program was not effectively managed yet, mainly due to the shortage in soft components, such as lacking of special unit/persons responsible for emergency preparedness and response, lacking of evacuation plan, disorganized regular risk assessment, and inadequate teacher-training on disaster prevention education. In addition, after the check by Fisher's exact test (extended), it had been found out that frequency of subdivided risk level was associated with the school preparedness level.