Teaching emergency and disaster management in Australia: Standards for higher education providers

The need for emergency and disaster professionals with multidisciplinary knowledge and holistic understanding is widely recognised. Despite this, there is currently no international nor an Australian consensus on a set of common standards for higher education that could ensure graduates possess knowledge and skills with suffcient commonality to facilitate interoperability in all facets of disaster management cycle. Thus, this research project aimed to develop a standards and an associated conceptual framework for higher education programs in emergency and disaster management.

The Generic Emergency and Disaster Management Standards (GEDMS) were developed through a mixed qualitative research approach involving a systematic literature review, mapping of current course content offered in Australia and New Zealand, focus groups of experts and consultation with policy makers, industry representatives and other relevant stakeholders.

The Standards consist of three main domains: knowledge, skills and application. Governance and policy frameworks, theoretical and conceptual basis for practice, and contemporary disaster management were identified as underlying themes for the knowledge domain. Leadership, communication, and collaboration were fitted under the skills domain. The professional practice, together with critical thinking, were considered the means by which knowledge and skills are applied.