The Ministry of Education is calling on all school sports meet organisers to have an evacuation plan prepared for all school sports tournament held at the National Stadium, Laucala, Suva.
The evacuation plan must be communicated to the students and even tested before the games start. The Minister of Education, Ambassador Filipe Bole made the call as a precautionary procedure for the safety of the children who will be out in the ground at any sports day.
“It would be advisable for school sports tournament organisers to prepare evacuation plans for all games to be played at the National Stadium, Laucala in Suva.”
“The plan should be communicated to students, teachers and parents and preferably tested before the games start to evaluate its effectiveness. Better still if these plans are communicated at school before students depart and then repeated at the stadium for testing.” the Minister said.
“As we all know the Laucala Stadium is only less than 50 meters from the shoreline. This is a threatening situation to the safety of our children. The suggestion compliments OHS regulations over school childrens’ safety. Hopefully it would be effectively carried out responsibly by teachers and sports meet organisers,” Mr Bole further said.
Last week the Minister made a similar call to all schools along the coast to also have evacuation plans for the schools.
Instructions have been given to all District Education Offices to ensure that evacuation plans of risk schools are prepared and endorsed.
The call came in the wake of the recent tsunami experience in Japan in which Fiji was also warned.
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