District Chief Education Officer R. Swaminathan has asked all schools in the district to set up a complaint box on their premises to deal with sexual offences.
Based on recent recommendations of the Madras High Court, he has instructed the schools to install the complaint box in which students can put written complaints on sexual offences without any fear. “Safety of students inside schools is of paramount importance. Hence, I have requested all the schools to immediately install these boxes and also put up on their notice board the phone numbers of all the women police stations in the district,” he said.
District Education Officers (DEOs) and Block Education Officers (BEOs) had been asked to check whether the boxes had been placed in schools in their educational district limits. School heads were told to create awareness among students about the presence of the complaints box.
The circular to the school heads also mentioned about the court’s direction that the box shall be looked into by the District Legal Services Authority and the District Social Welfare Officer once a week and the key of the box will be kept under the custody of the DLSA secretary.
