The safety of children has always been a major concern among the parents, be it at their schools or outside.
Often, these untoward incidents and accidents turn fatal only because the people around are not trained or equipped to deal with emergencies.
Including personal safety training at a school level is essential and can help reduce the impact of such incidents from time to time. Pune365 spoke to citizens, teachers and experts to gauge their view on personal safety training in schools.
Prashant Ranpise, Pune’s Chief fire officer, says the Fire department is continually conducting programmes on safety training in schools and this has been on for the past few decades.
“Our team trains school children to deal with natural and man-made disasters. The programme is conducted for around two hours and includes practical knowledge to enhance their understanding. For example, we burn dry leaves in a small area and show them how fire extinguishers can be used.
Children are also trained to deal with basic panic attacks.
For safety training in schools, Ranpise advised that “The school should approach the fire department and decide a convenient time for our team to visit the school. So far we have been doing one school a week.”
Disasters are unpredictable and most often these incidents can be avoided. It is thus essential to include personal safety training at the right age and nothing works better than starting this with school children, he added.
It should be a part of the syllabus and made compulsory for everyone, says Deepa Shivatre, Parent.
My kids have never told me about such programmes being conducted in schools.
Source: Change.org
Parents representative have been pitching the idea of fire drills in school for over a year now. Yet not even one has been conducted.
In my opinion, Personal safety should not only include fire drills and disaster management tips and the girls and boys should also be trained in self-defence.
It should be made mandatory for schools to have experts talking about personal safety inside and outside the school at least once a month, Shivatre added.
Sushmita Kadam, Parent says, Kids learn better with their friends and they’ll better understand this when their classmates or friends are around.
A school teacher who wishes to stay anonymous says, “ Safety training is the need of the hour since we see so many incidents happening in the school itself.
They should know how to react in any circumstances and hence it is very important for them.”
Our school management has not been serious about the training on personal safety. Hence, we trained our kids on basic things to deal with but nothing on a larger scale, she added.
Our school has been conducting regular drills from the past few years and we ensure that it is done once in 6 months, says Sunita Prakash, a school teacher.
Even parents are part of the safety drills we conduct in school.
In addition to other co-curricular activities, our school is focused on self-defence training also, Our school children are also trained on basic first aid by certified doctors.
The training is started from 6th standard and continue to 10th. Children below 10 years are not made part of this training, but for their parents it is compulsory.
All children and adults should be made aware and train in first aid and that is what we aim to achieve in school. Finding a first aid training company to help facilitate that as they progress through school is important in the case of preparing them more as they grow.
The only aim is to prepare them for future calamities and the children learn quickly and easily, she added.
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#All views expressed in this article are those of the individual respondents ( some names changed on request) and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.
