Each year, a considerable amount of public money is spent on post disaster relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Landslides are one such hazard which take lives, cause physical impairment to people and impact their livelihoods leaving them and their family members also in a trauma. When landslides occur in school premises, considerably a large number of innocent lives are at risk. Damages to school buildings and to associated infrastructure cause long term impacts on education and health. Out of the eighteen schools some schools are leading national schools in the country, which are located within the heart of the Kandy city and relocation of those schools to a safer place is also not economical because of the non-availability of safer and suitable land plots in the proximity.

The eighteen schools listed in the Table 1 below had been identified as vulnerable to landslides, based on the NBRO’s investigations performed time to time. Therefore, NBRO and then Ministry of Disaster Management submitted a technical proposal for government for landslide risk reduction in schools in Kandy District. Upon the acceptance of the government, the project for Mitigation of Landslide Impact on Schools in the Kandy District was implemented under the School Protection Program of Climate Resilience Improvement Project (CRIP) funded by the World Bank under the Sri Lanka Comprehensive Climate Risk Mitigation Program.

The school protection program has been successfully completed and it is pleasure to say that about 30,000 of total students out of 18 selected schools and total area of about 150 sq.km could be protect through the project. The slope rectification performed under the project has minimized the landslide threat on these schools and secure the continued functioning of schools at its original location and ensure the continued education, not only of the present students, but also of the children in future generations.

Table 01: 18 schools selected for risk mitigation