Officials led to safety lapses: Activists
Say their laxity is to blame for recurring cases of abuse, murder in schools.
Mumbai: City activists working in the field of education have squarely blamed the school department and education ministry officials for the recurring cases of child abuse in schools. The allegations have been prompted by the murder of a seven-year-old male student in a Gurugram based school belonging to the Mumbai-based St Xaviers Education Trust that runs the Ryan International Schools across the country. Activists have said that even though the Right to Education (RTE) Act enumerates safety norms to be abided by schools for the safety of its students, laxity on the part of education department officials results in schools getting away with violating these norms.
Jayant Jain, president of the Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE), said the safety norms in the RTE Act are comprehensive but very few schools abide by them. As a result, the instances of child abuse and even murder in the school premises has been increasing in the past few years.
“The department officials seldom do a thorough check on whether the schools are complying with norms as they tend to take gratification from the school management for looking the other way in the face of lapses. Another problem that officials face in schools affiliated to non-state board schools, is that they are refused entry and hence they cannot check whether safety norms are being followed,” he said.
Another activist, Mr Suresh Lad, who also is part of Jagrut Palak, a parent-teachers association, said that many a times schools gave undertakings to officials about complying with safety norms, but there is no proper follow up by officials. “The number of schools is high and visiting each and every school is a humongous task for them. Hence, there is seldom any follow up which leads to such dastardly instances taking place,” he said.
Mr Jain said that while schools were guilty of callousness, if the state took a strong stand and made an example of a couple of schools by levying a hefty fine, it would ensure that all schools toe the line.