Safety of children cannot be ensured by guidelines sans accountability. In the aftermath of the murder of a student in the Ryan International School, Delhi and filing of student-security related PIls in the Supreme Court, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued safety guidelines to its affiliated schools.
The School and Mass Education Department of Odisha has also issued similar guidelines. Other State Governments might have responded in similar manner. This is a laudable step by the authorities.
One part of the issued guideline relates to creation of certain school infrastructure such as a boundary wall, separate toilets for students and non-students , CCTV camera installation and so on. The second component of the guideline speaks about the screening of staff through psychological tests, verification of past criminal records and imparting safety awareness training. The third component of the guideline speaks about constitution of monitoring committees in schools such as committees for redressal of public/staff/parents/students grievances, formation of internal complaints committee on sexual harassment, creation of committee under POCSO Act and so on. These are excellent guidelines indeed, designed to address the safety of children in schools but are they implementableIJ
Infrastructure guideline like the construction of a boundary wall or a few latrines in the school can be implemented by the private and the Government schools as there is money with them. But what about the need to monitor building safety, boundary wall safety, electrical safety, fire safety, natural disaster safety, water safety and food safety situation in institutions on monthly basisIJ
The Government does not yet have an electronic dynamic data base system indicating the infrastructural risks of all public and private schools/ hostels of the State on monthly basisIJ
Ensuring personnel quality in schools is the biggest challenge, though the new guideline talks of psychometric test for staff. Adequate and reliable personnel tests are not possible in both the Government and the private schools. On the other hand, it is not possible to remove an existing staff from a school if he fails a psychometric test. There are other test-deterrent factors in Government schools such as the existence of different caders of teaching staff, Government recruitment policy, politicalisation of teachers and the white elephant education- bureaucracy.
In spite of previously issued guidelines, there are reports of teachers giving corporal punishment to the students, engaging students in personal work, inflicting sexual assault on girl students and giving hazardous Mid-Day-Meal in the Government schools. The situation is perpetuating in spite of large number of supervisory educational officials under the Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan (SSA) at the grassroots.
However training and punishment can help in building the right attitude among the school staff in the Government schools.
Staff quality is more difficult to monitor in the private schools due to lack of transparent recruitment policy, low-salary of staff, profit motive of the owners and lack of training of personnel. Besides, some private educational institutions are seen engaged in real estate business under the cover of education and keep goons in the schools in various jobs to suppress the locals and the parents.
The big private educational institutions are rich people having links with the power corridors where normal hands of law cannot reach. So there is a difficulty in bringing reform in personnel domain here unless enforcement is powerful and done by an agency which is different from education.
The third guideline component which speaks of committees in the schools is again a flimsy idea.
The PTA and school management committee system are good systems in the Government schools but such systems are powerless in the private schools.
Unless special law is brought to empower the guardians of the private schools, these committees will have no teeth in the private schools.
The private schools might make the committees scapegoat during crimes.
The analysis leads to the conclusion that the safety of the children in the schools cannot be achieved by issuing fresh guidelines by boards or education departments but by creating a suitable third party monitor who shall do the safety audit of institutions periodically, create a gradation list and recommend to the education department / boards/ concerned authorities for action against unsafe institutions.
It is important for the authorities to differentiate between guidelines and their legal obligation.
Guidelines are preventive steps and its violation can attract fines or cancellation of board affiliation. On the other hand, school authorities are legally responsible to inform local police when crime against a child is committed in the schools such any physical assault, sexual assault, caste discrimination, assault during transit or hostels and so on.
Both, prevention and prosecution actions, need to be followed by schools to ensure safety of students. Usually, the school suppresses the abuse which slowly transforms the school into a crime- sanctuary.
India has moved quite ahead of other nations in the path of child protection. We have Child Protection Units, JJB and CWC at the district levels and Child Right Protection Commissions at the national and the State levels. Now, we have to give the safety monitoring role to the Women and Child Development (WCD) departments of the Union and the State Governments as they are the expert in the child protection domain.
The WCD department should prepare the guidelines in consultation with other stakeholders. Once the WCD department finalises the guidelines, these have to be issued by the concerned departments/ boards.
The WCD department should do the annual child safety cum protection audit of AWC /pre-school/play school/ residential units / orphanages by its ICDS personnel for 3-6 years children and safety audit of 6-18 year children in schools/hostels/ homes/ school- transport systems should be done by the district child protection units. The BEOs under SSA can be employed as special safety officers too.