Ensure better safety at schools: Department of Public Instruction

Bengaluru: The Department of Public Instruction has revised the safety guidelines for both private and public schools across the state and made it mandatory for them to constitute the safety committee.

Commissioner of Public Instruction K.G. Jagadeesh stated in his circular that as per the revised orders, the safety committee will be headed by headmasters of school and must have community engagement with the involvement of local police, parents, teachers, senior local community members, staff from peer schools and subject matter experts based on the needs of the school.

The committee must oversee classroom policies, field trip policies, safety of children during journey on school bus from home to class vice versa, athletic event policies, lunchroom procedures, laboratory policies, housekeeping policies, visitation and visitor identification policies, background check and employment application policies.

Protection against unauthorised entry during day and when closed, prevention of entry of stray and domestic animals to the school campus, fire drills and storm drills is must in every school.

The revised order has also asked all private and public schools to mandatorily to install CCTVs in every classroom, bathroom and students barred from exchanging uniforms in the campus.

As like anti-ragging committee constituted at college level, schools must also constitute such committee at school level with the involvement of local police personnel in the committee.

Schools must mandatorily constitute the committee to check the sale of drugs around school campus as per the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Classification, Regulation and Prescription of curricula etc.) Rules, 2018  and under section  35 of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education.

The committee shall periodically carry out awareness campaign amongst the students, teachers and prepare publicity material, if need be, for maintaining safe standards in the schools and prevention of any untoward incident relating to schools. All actions, directions, orders of this committee shall be counted as lawful for enforcement by one and all concerned.

Every school must have crisis management plan with complete evacuation plan in case of fire tragedies, school buses should not carry more than the specified number of children permissible as per capacity and permit, have a first aid box, fire extinguisher and schools must not encourage children to send in private cabs.

School authorities must allow police to file suo- moto cases o molestation charges.   There should be separate toilets for girls and boys, for teachers, and for support staff. The Support staff in particular should not be allowed to use toilets meant for children, even if they are assisting in this section.