“Oops!” - This should not have happened.. We are lamenting once again... I am referring to the fury and noise being made on the death of a child in one of the schools at South Delhi. .. but this is just not an odd case... the child falling from the middle of the bus right at the center .. the tragedy at Kumbakonam.. the students drowning in a river from a boat on an excursion in Kerala.. the fire during the annual day of a school in Haryana.....a hundred other cases... we are an ‘oops’ generation!. Always lamenting whenever something like this happens.. Grieving, getting on media discussions, prime times, news making.. The political bosses coming out with powerful statements.. and then the blessed memory.. Slowly receding to its shell.. our fears, worries and concerns evaporating into thin air!
School safety has been the last priority of any Government! If and they decide to intervene, then a few circulars.. a few warnings.. a few suspensions.. Post tragedy remedial work and nothing on the preventive side. Accidents are likely happen so long people are there, systems are there – unless they are safe, and periodically audited. But I go back to an age old adage in safety which i was taught in early seventies as a part of my lessons on safety –“Accidents do not happen; they are caused” – some one’s negligence, someone’s indifference and then some avoidable systemic faults.
Authoring a book on “School Safety – Issues & Concerns” some five years before (published by Quality Council of India) I had detailed a series of issues on school safety – infrastructural, human, procedural – covering a wide range of operating domains of a school system, giving a checklist for many of them (with scope for contextualizing the issues to the respective school situations) ..The book was released by the then Delhi Chief Minister... promises were made that each school would be asked to go through and follow some safety norms..The release was the beginning and the end of the story!
No one would see the importance – because the contents are not related to the Board examinations which possibly many consider as their bread and butter (Pardon me, I am not marketing or advertising for the book as it was authored and given free of Royalty and given to QCI as a contribution to a social cause)
I repeat what i had said in the book....the time has come for establishing National School bSafety Authority along with their Regional (State) subheads and each school having a school safety officer – whose singular concern would to deal with this issue. It is worth it as each school deals with nearly 1000 lives for about six hours a day and at least for about 220 days in a year! Nothing is more important than safety of the students in the school.
Governments (whoever they are and wherever they are..) should realize that their actions should speak louder than words!
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