After the unfortunate incident of a seven-year old student being murdered at Gurugram’s Ryan International School, Haryana Government will issue fresh guidelines to ensure the safety of students and teaching staff in the private and government schools of the state.
For this, the State Government has constituted a committee to frame these guidelines. The committee which include Additional Director s(Admn.) of Elementary Education and Secondary Education, Panchkula District Education Officer, District Attorney of Secondary Education, Deputy Director (Utkarsh), Assistant Director (academic cell), and representatives of private schools, would submit the guidelineswithin two days.
Fresh guidelines would talk about the number of women staff, helpers, availability of separate toilets for staff, boundary walls, liquor or tobacco shops near schools, CCTVs, maintaining registers for entry in the schools, entry of outsiders during school time, responsibilities of principals, teachers, class representatives among other issues.
“Some recent incidents, especially the one at Ryan International School in Gurugram, suggest that the safety of students, teachers and schools seems to have been comprised. These bring the schooling system a bad name,” said an official spokesman.
To prevent recurrence of such incidents, a standard operating procedure or guidelines are required to be put in place for compliance of all stakeholders, he said.
As safety concerns required immediate response, a structure proximate to the schools, needs to be created. So, the district-level committees or school-level safety committees are also required to be set up. Besides, a committee has been constituted to submit its report in two dayson the safety guidelines to be followed in the schools, added the spokesman.
The Ryan International School incident had raised several questions on the safety measures undertaken by the schools and agitating parents across the country had called for elaborate security measures in the schools.
Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma, while talking to the mediapersons at Bhiwani said that action would be taken against those private schools which violate rules and regulations. The State Government is committed towards the future of students and fresh directions for safety of students and teachers will be issued to schools for compliance, he said.
He said that managements of all private schools in the State would be made responsible and accountable for taking the students from home to school and back home.
The Minister added that liquor shops located within 400 meters of all schools in Haryana would be removed.
Notably, agitated parents had gathered outside the branches of Ryan International School in various parts of the country to protest against the murder of the seven-year-old and express their dissatisfaction with the ongoing investigation in the case.
One such agitation had turned violent in Gurugram with the police restoring to lathicharge in which some mediapersons had also sustained injured.
Besides parents, opposition parties had also demanded elaborate security and safety measures in all schools. Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had demanded implementation of strict guidelines for making the schools totally responsible and accountable for the safety and security of students.
On the other hand, Kiran Choudhry, Haryana ClP leader had demanded the BJP Government to set up a high-level committee to visit all private, affiliated and Government schools to ensure that the kind of security lapses, noticed in Gurugram school, do not surface anywhere and that Ryan is not repeated anywhere.