Increasing incidents of sexual assaults across the country has led the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights to direct schools to put in place a Child Protection Policy, with a focus on preventing sexual assault, rape and other related crimes on children in the school premises or in the bus they travel to school and back home. This includes an action team to identify safety and security problems. This is not the first set of guidelines on schools security that has been issued by a government authority. There have been many and this is another that is being added to the list. The key here is implementation of these guidelines.
Last month after the killing of a child in a school in North India, Herald conducted a spot check of the security measures in schools. The findings, which were published, showed that there were many schools that had not implemented guidelines on security that had been issued in the past. The Education Department too had conceded that schools had yet to put in place security measures as suggested by the Department.
To recap the findings of that spot check briefly, most schools in Canacona lacked even a compound wall and the proximity of some schools to the highways, brought in the threat of accidents. Schools in Bardez and Pernem claimed that they had security measures in place, but didn’t provide any details. In most schools in Ponda, it was teachers and staff who did the policing job in addition to their other duties, as many did not have even a proper security guard. Schools in Sattari lacked CCTV cameras, while in Vasco, some schools had adopted security measures and others had not. It is pertinent to note, that schools at the Cujira complex that opened in recent months, had security measures in place, indicating perhaps that it is simpler to introduce systems in new schools than to bring in changes in existing schools.
The question therefore is not just of guidelines being issued, but also the need to ensure their implementation within a certain time frame, failing which the defaulting schools should be pulled up.
Now that the Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issued the guidelines and sent the set of suggestions to the Education Department for implementation, it is incumbent on the latter to ensure that schools begin to focus on this as quickly as possible.
Besides the need for CCTVs, restrictions on visitors to schools, separate toilets for boys and girls, the guidelines also ban teachers from smoking, drinking or eating paan or gutka in the school premises. It also, very pertinently takes up new challenges of dangerous internet-based games and advises that an advisory of the blue whale game be displayed on notice board and circulated among teachers and parents. Security challenges today are not just due to the physical presence of persons in the school compound or the school bus, but also the virtual presence of predators through the net, with games targeting children. The seriousness of the situation therefore increases manifold.
Just last month, through this column, we had reminded the authorities by quoting a former Education Director it is indeed ‘time to move from indignation to action’ on this issue of safety in schools. But it appears that little has been done since. Will Education Department take this seriously since the guidelines have now come from the Commission for Protection of Child Rights? This involves the safety of students and children, and it is perhaps also necessary for parents to compel schools managements to have adequate security measures in place, it is for the safety of their children that these are being introduced.
