Schools to prefer female support staff for kids of up to 6 years, form a committee at school level on lines of POSH Act : New govt guidelines

Further, the government has formed a seven-member state-level safety committee headed by a commissioner of school education to ensure strict implementation of all safety measures in schools. These committees will take review every three months whereas local education officers are asked to take review every month.

The school education department issued a Government Resolution (GR) in this regard on Wednesday which asks local education officers to ensure that ICC committees are formed in schools in their respective areas within a week.

“These committees will also include senior students so that young children will be comfortable to discuss their complaints in these committees. Apart from creating awareness about sexual harassment among children, schools are also asked to inform children about existence of complaint boxes so that it can be used,” said an official from the school education department adding that the ICC committees will be different from the already recommended Sakhi Savitri Committees in schools.

The GR also reiterates other measures such as installation of CCTV and background verification of all staff. “Just having installed CCTVs is not enough but schools have to ensure that they are in working condition with regular maintenance. Additionally, school principals will have to oversee the footage from these CCTVs at least three times a week and report if any untoward incident is noticed during the viewing,” states the GR adding schools have to inform education officer within 24 hours in case of any incident of assault on children. Otherwise strict action will be taken against the school principal.

School education minister Deepak Kesarkar, while addressing media on Wednesday said, “Taking serious cognizance of the incident in Badlapur school, we have already appointed a government administrator at that school.”