Stop them setting up shop

There is hardly a day that goes by which doesn’t show India, especially the north, in poor light when it comes to crimes against women and children. In 2015, data

There is hardly a day that goes by which doesn’t show India, especially the north, in poor light when it comes to crimes against women and children. In 2015, data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed that Delhi is most unsafe city for children in the country with 166.9 cases registered for every 100,000 children. On Wednesday, a four-year-old girl, a pre-nursery student of an upmarket school in Gurgaon, was allegedly sexually assaulted by an attendant inside a school bus. While the police has done its job by acting quickly on the case, the school has several questions to answer: How could they allow the transport company to put a new person without verification in charge of students? The school will probably try to get away by saying that they have outsourced the transportation duties but that will not cut any ice since the safety of students is the responsibility of the school.

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Second, why didn’t the school deploy its own resource (a teacher or an attendant) when the regular attendant was on leave? The molestation accused was filling in for his brother, reports said. Third, the timing is unfortunate but schools must be asked what they have learnt from the 2014 case in Bangalore where a teacher molested a student. There was a lot of talk then about starting a system of internal verification in schools but nothing seems to have been done. In addition to the children being in danger of becoming victims of predators, many school buses are driven by people without proper qualifications. This has resulted in injuries to children due to accidents caused by reckless driving. The school has the duty to do complete background checks on drivers and attendants and also verify the road worthiness of the vehicles used to ferry children.

Last by not the least, the Gurgaon case also highlights the lack of surveillance and regulation of private school buses in most metros. Because of the high demand, fly-by-night operators are able to set up schools and then outsource transportation to people who are not verified or even qualified. The checks on such schools and transport providers should be at the very time they are setting up shop. And checks by the education authorities have to be carried out regularly.