| In the past 14 years, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued eleven separate circulars emphasizing the importance of school security and student safety.It has laid down briefs on fire safety management, structural safety, how to deal with violence and ragging in schools, how to protect children from sexual abuse, and how to ensure safety of children in school buses, among others.As per the directions by CBSE for student safety.While these directions demand a decent amount of accountability from schools, a holistic approach to tackling the student safety issue is also needed. Schools must recognize the power of vigilance as the key to protecting children. |
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Physical Safety
- It is essential to keep the school environment including the school buildings, premises, playgrounds, laboratories, swimming pool, computer rooms, libraries, toilets, drinking water facilities, school buses, transport area and the surroundings safe and secure.
- The buildings should be built to ensure "life safety", and be more resilient to hazards
- School administration, staff, teachers as well as students need to be better aware and prepared to respond to any catastrophe, natural or man-made
- The schools must leverage low cost and environment-friendly technologies without compromising on structural soundness and safety of the buildings
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Psychosocial Safety
- Just as the physical safety of children in schools is important to ensure complete student safety, so too is their psychosocial safety
- Children who are victims of violence show continuous symptoms of depression, dissociative reactions, feelings of helplessness, lack of emotional intelligence, and aggression
- Installing CCTV cameras at strategic locations across school premises would ensure that a child's day-to-day life in school is constantly being monitored and recorded
- The schools must be vigilant and constantly be on the lookout for any forms of child abuse, whether physical, emotional, or sexual. The staff should be trained to understand key indicators of child abuse, and be prepared to respond instantly to inappropriate or harmful behavior
- The policy framing process of schools must follow the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery (PPRR) model of risk management. In matters pertaining to child safety, this model would help the school administration to be vigilant
- The security cameras can be effective in school safety investigations, or even act as deterrents to such behaviour
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School transportation and safety
- In 2014, CBSE made it mandatory for all school buses to install GPS systems to ensure safe transportation of children to and from schools
- However, the actual need of the hour is to provide the school administration with an easy-to-use system to ensure safety of children and fleet management in real-time, and provide parents with constant updates of their children's whereabouts
- When it comes to hiring teachers, administrators and other school staff, there are many good reasons to conduct pre-employment background checks for student safety.
- This will help schools in screening people who come in contact with students within the school premises, including teachers, administrators, sports coaches, cleaning staff and volunteers.
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Background verification of staff
- When it comes to hiring teachers, administrators and other school staff, there are many good reasons to conduct pre-employment background checks for student safety.
- This will help schools in screening people who come in contact with students within the school premises, including teachers, administrators, sports coaches, cleaning staff and volunteers
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Visitor management system
- Generic tags for visitors and handwritten late slips and permission slips for students will not really serve the purpose of recording and analyzing information
- A digital visitor management system with visitor sign-in information and photo ID badges will instantly increase the level of security in schools
- Our school can easily collate information from contractors, volunteers, parents, and staff visits during the sign-in/sign-out process. The system can even automatically mark student attendance and send the reports directly to the parents, using a simple mix of GPRS and SMS/email notifications
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