The Hindu 05.03.2013
Civic body to hold emergency training camp for Principals
Intends to make schools responsible for their students
A day before the inquiry report on the rape of a
seven-year-old girl in a municipal school is submitted to the North
Delhi Municipal Corporation, the civic body’s Education Committee has
called for an “emergency training camp” for all its school Principals.
The camp, which is scheduled to be held this Wednesday and Thursday,
will target the Principals of all the 780 municipal schools under its
jurisdiction.
“Our main objective is to make the
staff take responsibility of the students when they are within the
school premises. We will be training them and conducting a sensitisation
programme,” said NDMC Education Committee Chairman Rekha Gupta. “This
is so we can hold them responsible and accountable for the security of
each student in their school,” she added.
School boundaries may go up, CCTVs installed
The
training will only target principals since they are the implementing
agency, she said. Another high-powered meeting on Tuesday will take
decisions on the height of boundary walls in municipal schools and the
installations of CCTV cameras, said the Committee Chairman.
The North Corporation will bear all the medical and legal costs borne by the family of the seven-year-old girl.
Following
the incident on Saturday five employees were suspended including the
Principal. The school inspector, class teacher, attendant and chowkidar
were the others who received suspension orders from Corporation
Commissioner P. K. Gupta. He also constituted a five-member committee to
probe the incident.
In the budget proposal finalised
by the education committee last December, the civic body had
recommended allocating additional funds for CCTV camera, arranging
security guards, extension of fencing walls and providing mobile chips
to all principals for more connectivity in all municipal schools.