No private school inspected by school safety committee since March

A district-level school safety committee formed after the murder of an eight-year-old boy in a private school in 2017 has been non-functional for the last six months, according to its members.

The members of the school safety committee who were assigned the task of inspecting the measures adopted by private schools for safe transportation, security within the campus, activities to create awareness among parents, counselling of students, among other parameters, have said that the last inspection took place in 15 private schools in February. According to them, a full-fledged meeting of the members chaired by the officials of district administration was last held on March 1.

“Since February, there has been no inspection of schools by the six teams formed under the district-level school safety committee,” a senior official in the state education department and a member of the committee, who requested anonymity, said.

“No activity from the administrative front took place to inspect or to conduct meetings as all departments were busy in the general election. Later, the schools were closed for vacation. Hopefully, after the state assembly elections are over, the inspections and meetings might resume,” the official said.

In 2017, to address safety issues in more than 500 private schools of the city, the school education department approved safety regulations for all schools in the state. The department, under Section 21 of the Haryana School Education Act, 1995, authorised the committee to inspect schools and address defects or deficiencies found at the time of inspection.

In Gurugram, six teams were formed under the 20-member committee. Each team comprised a member of the education and transport department and a psychologist. Their core work is to focus on basic parameters like installation of CCTV cameras in blind spots like libraries, verandahs and laboratories, ensure the presence of a behavioural psychologist in schools to address anxieties and aggressive nature among students and the availability of safe medicines in schools. They also look at proper verification of the non-teaching staff and compliance of traffic rules and regulations by school buses.

The committee would conduct inspections every month after its formation in September 2017 for six months, and then once in two or three months.

Members of the committee, who work privately in the school education field, said that activities have been ongoing to create awareness among parents. “All the guidelines related to safety in schools are available in the public domain. Also, activities are ongoing in different schools to address issues related to behaviour among children,” one of the members said.

Tripti Singh, who heads Gurgaon Parents for Better Education, an online platform with more than 18,000 members that addresses parents’ issues related to schools, however, disagreed. She said, “Even after two years, parents are not aware of any such committee. Parents have no idea whom to approach in the committee for concerns related to schools. Today, social media is one of the easiest ways to reach out to parents to create awareness but the committee and its members are not on any such platform to directly address issues faced by the parents.”

The committee is headed by Amit Khatri, deputy commissioner, Gurugram, who said, “Members are working towards ensuring the safety of children. Civil society members who are also part of the committee are reporting about school buses violating norms and other issues.”

HT asked Khatri about the last meeting held in March where it was discussed that an audit format would be prepared to rank private schools. He did not respond. However, another senior official confirmed no such format has been prepared till now.

First Published: Sep 07, 2019 23:36 IST