Delhi becomes first city to have CCTVs at government schools

Kejriwal rules out any violation of privacy of schoolchildren, announces all schools to have CCTVs by November
CCTV installed at a classroom inside Shaheed Hemu Kalani school in Lajpat Nagar on Saturday.
CCTV installed at a classroom inside Shaheed Hemu Kalani school in Lajpat Nagar on Saturday.

NEW DELHI: Parents will be able to see their children inside classrooms in real time basis for the first time in the world courtesy the CCTV network, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, as he sought to dispel any controversy on compromising the privacy of students.

“There were some objections that it (CCTVs) will affect the privacy of children in schools. But, students do not come to schools for private work. They come to study, to learn discipline and to get mentored.

"If parents, teachers and students don’t have issue, then others shouldn’t have,” he said after launching the CCTV project for government schools at Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya.

“The step is a landmark in India’s schooling system and help to improve the standard of education. It will be implemented across all the state schools by November.”

 CM Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia at
launch of the CCTV project for schools | Naveen Kumar

Live feeds will be accessible to the parents through a mobile app after the schools provide them with a password.

School principals, director and deputy director of education, and education minister shall get live feeds as well as delayed feeds of one-month period.

“The opposition had strongly opposed it (the project) — they applied different tactics to create fear among parents and students.

The matter was taken to the court but we were confident of our project as it was aimed at providing holistic and better education,” Kejriwal said.

Citing the importance of CCTVs, the CM pointed at the recent rape incident in Dwarka where the accused was arrested with help of footage captured by the cameras.

“CCTV creates a fear of getting filmed. Children are mischievous by nature. But with CCTVs, students won’t be able to bunk classes. They will be more disciplined.” 

Deputy chief minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia said the project will help in making the education system more transparent due to surveillance.

“School environment has improved in the past four years. Teachers face allegations of absenteeism. No one will now be able to wrongly accuse teachers of skipping classes. Initially, I thought the students might not appreciate it but both students and teachers came up with positive response,”  he asserted. 

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