New Delhi: India’s key child rights panel, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), said on Monday that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, must be amended to bring management committee of private school under its ambit.
This suggestion came up at a high-level meeting of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Human Resource Development (HRD) ministries, which was convened to discuss safety protocols for schools, in the aftermath of the Ryan International school incident where a class 2 student was murdered.
“NCPCR has suggested that currently the RTE Act does not cover management committee of private schools. They need to be included in the RTE law,” an official, who attended the meeting, told Hindustan Times.
NCPCR is also revising the safety and security guidelines in schools, officials said.
Union WCD minister Maneka Gandhi and her HRD counterpart, Prakash Javadekar, also emphasised on the need to sensitise school students about “good” and “bad” touch.
Gandhi suggested that schools should consider having women employees as support staff and bus drivers/conductors and have strict norms for employing them. She said that WCD ministry is ready to fund the training of women drivers.
Another suggestion that came from Gandhi was setting up Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) booth in some of the big schools. “The booth should be equipped with a telephone hotline to the Childline number 1098. Any child who faces any abuse can walk in to the booth and call the helpline number to register his/her complaint,” said another WCD ministry official.
{{/usCountry}}Another suggestion that came from Gandhi was setting up Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) booth in some of the big schools. “The booth should be equipped with a telephone hotline to the Childline number 1098. Any child who faces any abuse can walk in to the booth and call the helpline number to register his/her complaint,” said another WCD ministry official.
{{/usCountry}}The WCD ministry is ready to fund the setting up of such booths, Gandhi said.
“Javadekar said that secretaries of the two ministries should meet to discuss the feasibility of the proposal,” a government official said.
It was also decided to include the WCD secretary in an informal group comprising secretaries from ministries of HRD, tribal affairs, minority affairs, social justice and empowerment and drinking water and sanitation to discuss issues related to developing guidelines for schools to ensure the safety and security of students.
“The informal group will decide what all suggestions should be accepted and the timelines for implementing them,” said an official.
Besides WCD and HRD ministries, Monday’s meeting was also attended by officials from the NCPCR, CBSE, NCERT, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan among others.