HYDERABAD: The brutal incident of a seven-year-old boy’s murder by a school bus conductor at a school in Gurugram has sent shivers down the spine of parents across the country. Closer home, in Telangana, there are no measures taken by schools to ensures safety of children inside schools by either of the three police commissionerates—Hyderabad, Cyberabad or Rachakonda.
There are around 12 lakh students studying in 3,218 schools in the twin cities. In fact, in some cities including Gurugram and Bengaluru, the police have issued detailed guidelines on measures to be taken by schools in various aspects like ways of securing premises and entry/exit points, spots for installing cameras, appointment of safety and vigilance officers and taking safeguards with respect to hiring of permanent as well as part-time teaching and non-teaching staff.
In Bengaluru, the guidelines have been issued under Karnataka Police Act, 1963 and violations are punishable by law. Telangana’s school education department has also conveniently ignored the issue. The government has not even passed any law on safety measures to be taken by the schools, which can make schools liable for prosecution if lapses occur on the latter’s part similar to the Gurugram incident.
When contacted, District Education Officer of Hyderabad, G Ramesh could only cite GO MS-1 passed in 1994 by the then Andhra Pradesh government. The GO makes it mandatory for schools to only obtain No Objection Certificates from fire department and traffic police and fire safety norms as per National Building Code. Majority of the schools in Hyderabad were not even adhering to guidelines of National Commission For Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) that schools should get police verification done of all teaching as well as non-teaching staff. In the Gurugram incident, NCPCR found that the school was guilty of not following this guideline and recommended that police case could be filed against it. School education department has no clue as to how many schools were adhering to this guideline.
Ashish Naredi of Hyderabad Schools Parents Association (HSPA) said, “Many schools are not even following fire safety norms which is mandated as per law and the government is doing nothing about it. Children at government schools itself are most vulnerable due to lack of any safety measures. There should be a law with severe penalties in case of violations of safety of children inside schools like how there are laws to ensure safety of workers in factories.”