With confusion prevailing over child safety guidelines issued by different departments, the State government has decided to evolve a comprehensive schoolchildren safety policy.
Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee told The Hindu on Sunday, “These will be common guidelines which will be compiled by the committee headed by the Additional Chief Secretary to look into safety of children.”
The clarification comes a day after Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra “erroneously” told the media that the State Cabinet cleared the policy on Saturday. According to sources, a decision on the policy was deferred by the State Cabinet since it “lacked clarity”.
Currently, school managements are expected to adhere to guidelines issued separately by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), Bengaluru city police and the Transport Department. The Women and Child Development Department has also come up with a parallel draft policy.
This has resulted in school managements not being in a position to adopt child safety measures even though it has been close to five months since the first set of guidelines was issued by the DPI.
Many schools said they were implementing the police guidelines as they had a penalty clause, unlike the Education Department guidelines, and FIRs were also registered against 186 schools. “We have been adopting a wait-and-watch policy over the other guidelines. But it is extremely difficult for schools to adopt even one guideline properly as each of them run into several pages.
Additional Chief Secretary V. Umesh told The Hindu that the new policy would encompass guidelines from various departments and each department would be assigned with responsibilities.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Managements of English Medium School in Karnataka, said it was a relief for schools that all the guidelines were being clubbed under one umbrella. “While we are open to ensuring safety of children, concerns of school managements and staff also need to be taken into consideration before the policy is finalised,” he said.