Schooled for safety

The nation mourns the 90 little children lost in that tragic blaze in a Kumbakonam school and grieves with each parent coping with his or her loss. Incidents like this come as reminders that our school system is deeply flawed, not just in terms of the failure to ensure universal learning, but in its inability to secure the safety of the young lives participating in that system. A school bus veers off a bridge in Delhi, students get marooned without food or water for days on end in a flooded village in Bihar, the roof of a classroom catches fire. Each incident of this kind reflects the unconscionable casualness that marks our attitude to schooling.

The point that the fire which engulfed the Sri Krishna Girls High School on Friday forcibly drives home is this: that the security of students is the first principle in delivering education. That school was a potential death trap — crowded classrooms, inflammable roofing, poor access, no exits, primitive kitchen facilities. But nobody noticed. Not the school authorities, not the educational administrators, not the parents, not society. Let us also not forget that this very school may appear the very epitome of good infrastructure when compared to the cattle-sheds that pass for schools in many parts of the country. India’s educational system has just not internalised safety as a prime value. This must change. Every school, poor though its infrastructure may be, little though its funds are, must ensure the basic minimum that they don’t result in the deaths of students. They need proper emergency exits, for instance, and fire-fighting equipment, even if it is only in terms of access to adequate water. Other measures, too, are needed, measures that do not cost money but require effort. Like the inculcation of a fire drill, so that schoolchildren know what to do when disaster strikes, when teachers are not around to guide them.

Tamil Nadu has a fairly good record on the education front. It has systematically improved its literacy profile through improving delivery systems. It was the first state to introduce the mid-day meal scheme, for instance, and has an enviable infrastructure in terms of learning. A tragic incident of this kind, instead of occasioning the ugly trading of charges between politicians, should prove a wake-up call on the great deal that still requires to be done on the school front. This needs the efforts and energies of every parent, teacher, administrator, political leader, regardless of party affiliation or social background. It is not enough to merely mourn for the children who died in Friday’s inferno, we need to ensure that such an incident never occurs again.