Kenechukwu Nwosu
In these times and season, keeping schools safe and secured cannot be overemphasised. Safety and security in schools create an educationally enabling environment and allows children to look forward to being in an encouraging environment that promotes social and creative learning. When there are obvious security challenges that these little ones identify at the age, children are at risk of not feeling comfortable at school and may stop showing up, or they may remain scared throughout the day. Promoting school safety and security makes teaching and learning effective and creates peaceful space for kids to explore, learn and grow.
A day such as Children’s Day May 27 beyond the partying and celebrations should also remind us as a people that the safety and security of children in and around schools is also everyone’s responsibility and a day like this should remind stakeholders in the education sector of their respective roles in promoting school safety and security
As every child has the equal rights to access to uninterrupted quality education, doing so in a safe and secured environment is most important. School safety and security affect children, teachers, administrators, parents, communities, stakeholders and government in a variety of ways. The issue of school safety is a major concern at all levels of government, from local to federal. It has become very imperative that government in collaboration with the security agencies should direct their surveillance on the schools and environment because when a pro actively established safety and security system is put in place, it brings confidence in both parents, teachers, students and communities in general.
To achieve this, it is important we should know that education of children in schools is a localised practice and schools are located in local governments and communities, while government owns most public schools and private education providers own the private schools. Having said this, government and private providers should collaborate with security agencies to start looking at having closer surveillance at the school environment, involve more manpower, information and communication technology (including GPS mapping) and preventive strategies. It is also important to have infrastructural evaluation of schools, to know how many schools we have, which schools are more exposed to security challenges, and knowing what provisions these schools have for safety and security.
There is also need to know how many children we have per class, per school, per locality and how prepared we are in case there is any alarming situation, what do schools do, this goes ahead to bring in the issue of security sensitisation and training in the schools, in which it is important for communities and the youths where the schools are located to be carried along in the planning and implementation of security activities.
It is necessary that schools with boarding facilities are properly fenced round with gate, CCTVs installed where possible and properly lit. Building of new schools and renovation of school buildings should have provision for strong windows and doors to create kind of safe rooms which will help school authorities to fortify protection of children in case of any alarming situation before external help will come from outside. Picking up of children after school hours should be seriously monitored. Only parents or duly assigned students should be allowed to pick students from schools. School buses should be registered with ministries of education and security agencies and they should be closely monitored by security agencies while picking and dropping children. This will help in transmitting information to these buses carrying children in case of security risks suspected or occurring along their routes to halt them before they run into such risk areas while carrying children. School management should also inspect all school buses before take off and drivers’ numbers and ID should be ready for supply to relevant agencies when quickly needed. Where possible, school buses should have tracking devices installed to help in recovering buses and students in extreme cases.
Schools should have different levels of clearance for visitors before they are allowed into school premises, all students, teachers and school non academic workers should always be in possession of their ID cards at all times. Security related courses should be introduced in schools, schools can promote security clubs in schools to build consciousness in students.
Students should be encouraged to report any suspicious movements, packages, strange bags or person within the school premises to the school management as soon as possible, phone calls inside the school must be prohibited for all visitors or persons not authorised to use phones during school hours. Teachers should be taught on basic evacuation skills in case of explosions, security alarms or fire outbreak in schools and also teachers should be taught how to conduct the students to keep calm and quiet in times of critical security alarms. Schools’ maps and diagrams should be made available to all teachers for quick evacuation purposes. All schools should have muster points where students can be easily gathered and roll calls taken immediately.
For public schools, government should make use of the School Based Management Committee (SBMC), which is made up of communities, the youths, the religious leaders, the traditional rulers, as well as Parent, Teachers Association (PTA) and other stakeholders to come together and brainstorm with a common focus for opinions, suggestions and inputs aimed at the protection of lives and property in our schools.
Schools should take roll calls twice daily that is every morning and then at the closing hours to ensure that no child is missing. Loitering during school hours should be banned completely.
There should be strong collaboration of government, school management with vigilante groups, the youths association and local hunters who know the terrains in case of any alarming situation, it is also important for government to make phone numbers available to people within the vicinity of the schools which they can call as soon as they notice security challenge around the schools because time is of the essence in any critical situation. Security situations in schools should be assessed at regular intervals, while local governments and school management should form security and sub-security committees in all schools. Schools should be equipped with first aid, toiletries, flash lights, radios and batteries.
Disaster management agencies, fire service providers and emergency management agencies and hospitals should also have their contacts given to school authorities for calls during emergency.
Nwosu, an education expert wrote from Umuahia
