A Cascade Teacher Training Model in Disaster Education: A Case of Turkey

Individuals' reluctance to take precautions before the disasters happen is one of the most critical concerns of the disaster management area. The disaster education given through schools is a critical process in addressing this problem. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the teacher training program model and the implementation practices of Turkey's School-Based Disaster Education Project. In Turkey, there are few studies regarding the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation stages of Disaster Risk Reduction education for teachers. The project has been carried out within the framework of the Ministry of National Education and Japan International Cooperation Agency. An at-scale cascade teacher professional development model was implemented. The model reached 135,375 teachers in 67 provinces by the 567 trainer teachers in a relatively short time with the cascade training system. This project has brought a significant nationwide disaster risk reduction training experience for Turkey with its economic and sustainable structure.