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| Safety and Security Audit of Schools | | | Mahadeep Singh Jamwal | 5/28/2019 10:43:22 PM |
| Security of educational establishments is a multi-faceted subject. The parents expect their children to be safe. When we speak of security in reference to security in schools, it means physical security of students and staff, protection from harm, preventing unauthorized access. School safeness is a sizzling matter in hands these days. Ensuring campus-wide security is a delicate balancing act. It is primary to provide a safe learning environment. Protecting students, faculty, staff, is critical to an educational institution in order to safeguard well-being and to mitigate risks. The primary responsibility of every school is to ensure a safe and secure environment for students, staff and visitors also. Addressing school safety doesn't mean simply responding to the latest horrific events but we have to understand where the threats are more likely to come from. Schools should take an "all-hazards" approach that considers the best responses to a variety of emergencies. It is one of the responsibilities of the school management to build a positive school climate to establish relationships of trust and respect among students and staff in order to encourage them to share information about threatening behavior before an incident occurs. In order to make responsible decisions regarding a school security and safety program, school administrators need to be just as familiar with this function as they are with the academic affairs, facilities, and transportation departments within their respective schools. Ensuring the protection and welfare of students is the responsibility of all of us who interact with students and young people. Student protection must therefore be a priority for every school and must be at the core of all of its activities. Every person in the education service plays a role in keeping students and budding kids safe. Building a service learning environment, identifying pupils who are in distress or at a risk of harm and then taking suitable action are vital to ensuring children are safe at school at all times.
It is the sole responsibility of the school management to provide security for the safety of the students while maintaining an open and inviting educational environment in which students can learn and, at times, just enjoy being kids. The students can't study or learn if they don't feel safe at school. Making students feel safe has always meant focusing on physical factors such as the size and layout of buildings, access points, and the number of students. Security devices such as video surveillance systems, physical access control, intercom systems, fire protection, electronic locking systems, intrusion protection, security alarm systems and barriers are the main components of a school security system. These devices should be integrated to provide an effective school security solution.
It is to be ensured that adults, who work in the school, including volunteers, don't pose a risk to children. It must be ensured that a thorough background check is conducted to verify the identities of all teachers and support staff. This can help ensure that students are not interacting with adults who might harm them in any way within the school premises. The school management should verify the details of the van/bus driver's personal background details before putting them on the job of transportation of the school children. A study in 2013 stated that over one lakh children (boys and girls) go missing in India each year. Of these, how many go missing on their way to or from school, we do not know. But this rather disturbing statistic is not the only concern making us wonder whether schools are really safe for children. There are a number of elements making schools unsafe for kids like emergency situations fire/terrorist attacks, bullying and abuse. These become a major reason for concern as children tend to spend at least 6 to 8 hours at school every day, whereas boarding schools are more vulnerable. A security detail on schools will help prevent the entry of any unauthorized personnel on the school premises. This will also ensure that no students skip lessons and head out (unsupervised) before the end of a school day. Physical safety is not the only pressing need at schools, ragging and bullying followed by MMS scandals are another major cause for concern among parents these days. Schools need to ensure the mental health of students by addressing cases of bullying/ragging on school premises. Students need to be safe even outside the school premises. Schools need to ensure that students can take care of themselves and tackle situations like abductions/abuse etc. Here additional lessons in self-defense will come as a boon during unprecedented events, knowing how to throw off a physical attack etc.
Some of the suggestive tips towards the safety and security of the school children to be adopted by the school management are; install CCTV in all nooks and corners of the school premises, with earmarked staff to monitor them during school hours, security alarm should be installed in the school premises, ensure no unchecked entry into school premises, limit the entry points and equipped with security staff (The good security guard have a brain that works so fast that in one moment he can worry as much as it would take others a whole year to achieve), fence school premises adequately, proper frisking and regulate the entry into premises of authorized entrants, and identification cards. Police verification should never be avoided to enroll the staff. Students should be trained on security related subjects and some sort of security clubs be formed to discuss the security and safety by involving children to have ideas and discussions on security focus. Students should be encouraged to report any suspicious moves or person within or outside the school premises to the school management, students should be discouraged to bring/make use of mobile phones within the school premises, and teach teachers to be vigilant.
Concluding, the state governments and affiliating boards for schools have the responsibility to ensure that schools provide a safe and student friendly environment. The Schedule to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, provides for norms and standard for a school. Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme, School Management Committees (SMCs) can avail of training on all aspects of safety and security of children in schools. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has formulated and circulated detailed guidelines to its affiliated schools for safety of students in schools. The vital question in hand is how for these instructions, guidelines and directives are observed and adhered by the schools and monitored by the government and authorities issuing the directives. For the purpose security audit is required to be conducted of the schools to know the factual safety and security measures adopted by the education institutions. |
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