Lucknow In the wake of the murder of a student at Ryan International School in Gurugram, the district inspector of school (DIoS), Lucknow, has issued a circular asking schools here for police verification of school staff and private school van drivers and conductors.
The student was killed allegedly by the conductor of one of the school buses on Friday last week.
Most of the schools don’t verify the antecedents of drivers of school buses, private vans or auto-rickshaws ferrying school kids. “Schools barely check their history and employ them on the basis of licence they carry,” said DIoS (Lucknow) Mukesh Kumar Singh.
Parents too cannot shy away from their responsibilities as they hire private vans for their convenience. The education department seeks the support of both school management and parents for the safe transportation of their children to school. He said even parents will have to shoulder responsibility.
In the absence of any such rule, the education department also has its hand tied whenever the issue of police verification emerges.
“The parents must also keep a watch on van drivers and conductors. The education department officials and school management will also pitch in. It is the duty of all to ensure safety of children,” the DIoS said.
Singh further said schools must take preventive measures so that Gurugram-like incidents could be averted in future.
“School managements have been told to ban use of smartphones by drivers and conductors of school vehicles as they may use them to show objectionable things to children and sexually exploit them,” he said.
“This will be ensured by checking both by the schools and by the department,” Singh added. The education department has asked schools to check students coming to school on bikes (motorcycles) and that they should not be allowed entry unless they have proper driving licence. “Here too parent cooperation is a must because they do not prevent children from riding bikes,” the DIoS said.
[“source=hindustantimes”]
