After a child was murdered and another raped on the school premises in the National Capital Region last week, educationists and lawyers say a stricter law to regulate schools’ security as well as better monitoring of existing provisions are needed.
Ashok Agarwal, a lawyer and the president of the All-India Parents Association, said the fundamental problem was that since private schools can be profit-driven, they can forget about involving the most important stakeholders – the parents.
Right to question
“Parents should be involved, not kept outside the school boundaries. There should be a shift of power from the school management. The Centre should enact a law giving 50% representation to parents in committees that run unaided schools,” he said.
He added that currently parents account for just one member of the 22-member committees.
Random inspections
"Guidelines don't ensure safety. There should be a proper law enacted by Parliament, including the minorities’ schools. A law empowers parents. What we are being offered is cosmetic,” he said.
Educationist and former principal of Laxman School Dr. Usha Ram said: “Random inspections by the Delhi government are common, maybe twice or thrice in a year, but these are just to ensure good academics and infrastructure in a school, like whether CCTV cameras are installed correctly or not.”
She added that schools should make sure that there are attendants at washrooms for students and separate washrooms for staff/ parents and students, which Laxman School had done.
Regular supervision
Ashok Pandey, the principal of Ahlcon International School, said that only bringing in more security measures would not be sufficient.
“One activity is not sufficient. Security should take center stage and for that, we should renew our efforts to make students safe," he said.
According to him, re-visiting facilities and regular supervision by authorities are required as just installing cameras or other security features is not enough.
