KRISHNAGIRI: Two months after a nine-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a juvenile while she was returning back from school alone in the Bettamugilalam panchayat in Kelamangalam block of Denkanikottai taluk, an activist has raised concern over the lack of transportation and escort facilities for students who live less than one kilometre away from school.
In light of this incident which happened in the second week of August, the school department official told TNIE, "Escort or transport facility is provided for the students to reach school, for which Rs 600 is fixed per child.
An escort can accompany a maximum of five children. For primary school students, escort or transportation will be provided for a minimum distance of two kilometres from the school and for upper primary, the limit is set at three kilometres from the school.
In very rare cases, we provide escort facility for 1.5 km. But in this case, the survivor's village was located around one kilometre from the school. She used to travel with her friends for 900 metres and then travel 100 metres on her own. The incident happened when she was alone. Following the incident, an escort was provided to the girl and four other children to support her and prevent dropout."
Krishnagiri Chief Education Officer, R Madan Kumar said, "In 2025, escort or transportation services were provided to around 3,300 children in Krishnagiri district and following our efforts with the support of Collector C Dinesh Kumar, it has been increased to around 5,200 this year. We will survey the habitation and schools which are less than around one kilometre distance and will try to provide the support for the children. The details will soon be sent to the school education department."
Speaking to TNIE, child rights activist Devaneyan said, "The school education department should not use the same yardstick for Chennai and for other districts. It should be based on the background of the children and their locations. The department has the responsibility to protect and work for the best interest of the children. In tribal areas, children may be affected by human-animal conflict, incidents of sexual assault, etc.
These incidents can be prevented if the village level child protection committee was functional. In areas like Thalli and Kelamangalam, which already record higher number of child marriage and teenage pregnancy cases, facilities like this can help reduce dropout rates."
According to data provided by sources in school education department, escort or transportation facilities are being provided for 37,375 students in remote areas of 29 districts from class 1 to 8. In which, more number of students are from Nilgiris (4,977), Tiruvannamalai (4,638) and Krishnagiri (4,497). For class 9 and 10 students in 21 districts, there are around 3,715 beneficiaries among which 845 students are from Nilgiris and 691 students are from Krishnagiri.