After the Ryan International, Gurgaon incident shook the nation, a number of safety regulations were created for schools. But today, the National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) alleged that private schools were being made a soft target and they alone cannot be asked to strictly enforce all the guidelines while “exempting” government schools.
NISA is an all-India federation representing over 55,000 schools in different states.
Sub-standard quality of education at government schools
Addressing a news conference, Kulbhushan Sharma, president of NISA said, ”One incident (in Gurgaon school) has suddenly brought all the private schools under scanner, but worst incidents have happened in government schools but no safety measures are taken and the quality of education too happens to be sub-standard.”
“Private schools have been asked to install CCTVs, ensure police verification of staff, appoint security guards, hire only that labour whose police verification is done etc. However, the same provision has been missing in most of government schools,” he said.
H S Mamik, president of the Independent Schools’ Association in Chandigarh, was also present. Sharma said that in the wake of the incident of alleged murder of a class 2 student in Ryan International School in Gurgaon recently, various state governments are coming up with detailed safety regulations.
However, he asked why strict action was not taken against government schools when they were caught on the wrong foot. “Governments have mandated all their regulations only on private schools and they are always soft on government schools, who are exempted from following the regulations. The trend is further catching up in context of recent tragic death of a child in a Gurgaon school.
He said that financial assistance should be provided by the government to schools so that they are able to follow all the directions and the cost is not passed on to parents in form of increased fee.
[ Source : intoday]
