NEW DELHI: The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) is planning to appoint a designated teacher as a ‘safety nodal officer’ at the school level to monitor the safety and security parameters of the children, as set up by the department of school education and literacy, Government of India.
A special course has been designed for the teachers where the teachers will be trained on the psycho-social aspects of the safety and security of children and the implementation of the safety guidelines in schools.
The programme will include four sessions. The first session will be on setting the context of in school which will discuss the importance of safety and a brief orientation of NCPCR guidelines.
The second session will focus on emotional safety, psychosocial emergencies, early identification and prevention of self-harm, sexual abuse, bullying, aggression and prevention of substance use. The third session will be on the role and responsibilities of teachers highlighting the importance of the school safety committee, reporting and documentation and quarterly-annual monitoring. The last session will be on the road ahead involving further advisory for the schools to follow.
Dr Nahar Singh, Joint Director Academics, SCERT, “We are trying to rope in the respective resources to train such teachers as per the NCPCR guidelines such that they further train their colleagues.”
SCERT officials said that teachers from around 2,800 schools will participate in the programme of which 1,550 are MCD schools, 70 are of the NDMC, 1,034 schools are of the directorate of education and seven schools are under the Delhi Cantt.
The guidelines by the SCERT suggest that an active volunteer who has a keen interest in promoting the safety and security of children at the school level will be designated for the post of nodal teacher.
In the wake of school safety incidents in 2017, the department of school education and literacy reissued the guidelines (2014) on the safety of children which suggested preventive institutional mechanisms along with relief and redressal strategies in case of any such incidents.