The Haryana Government may take over the reins of Gurugram’s Ryan International School, where a seven-year-old boy was found murdered last week.
After the unfortunate incident, a three-member fact finding committee of Gurugram district administration had found many lapses in the security of students at Ryan school and suggested the State Government to take over the reins of the school. Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma held a high-level meeting of Education Department on Thursday to frame guidelines of the security of students and teachers at educational institutions in the State.
After the meeting, Haryana Additional Chief Secretary, School Education KK Khandelwal, while talking to the mediapersons said that if needed, the State Government may take over the school management. Several lapses were found in the school by the fact-finding committee and a notice is also served to the school authorities over various irregularities found in the school campus, he said. A seven-year-old student Pradyuman was found murdered in toilet of Ryan International School in Gurugram on September 8.
The deceased family had demanded a CBI probe into the matter. Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma had a day before said that the Government is ready to hand over the probe to the CBI.
Investigations conducted by the three-member committee had found that there is no boundary wall of the Ryan School, no separate arrangement of toilets for bus drivers and conductors of 40 buses deployed by the school for bringing the students, windows in the toilet meant for students were found broken, CCTVs were non-functional.
On safety guidelines for schools, Khandelwal said that the Government has chalked out fresh guidelines to ensure the safety of students in the private and Government schools of the State. All aspect related to safety in schools have been touched upon in the guidelines, he added.
The Education Minister will again hold a high-level meeting regarding the issue and would release these guidelines on Friday. Among the safety measures chalked out by the Government include, a special cell to oversee the safety measures in Government and private schools, fixing the number of women staff, helpers in schools as per the ratio of students, availability of separate toilets for staff, proper boundary walls, functional CCTVs, police verification of drivers, conductors and other helping staff, maintaining registers for entry in the schools, fixing responsibilities of principals and teachers for compliance of various guidelines. Earlier this week, the State Government had constituted a panel to frame these guidelines.
The Ryan International School incident had raised several questions on the safety measures undertaken by the private and Government schools and agitating parents across the country had called for elaborate security measures in the schools.
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.