School & Mass Education department asks district, block education officers to form safety advisory panel in schools

The School and Mass Education (S&ME) department has asked all district and block education officers to form safety advisory committees in schools.

As per the instruction of the department, the safety advisory committee at the block level will be headed by the Block Development Officer. The block education officer (BEO), block resource coordinators and cluster resource coordinators, technical consultants, gram panchayat officers, welfare extension officers and NGO activists will be members of the panel.

The committee at the school level will be headed by the school management committee president while the headmaster, two parents, as many students, persons from local civic organisations, PRI members, one Asha worker and an Anganwadi worker will be the members.

Once set up, these panels will ensure proper implementation of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) guidelines and safety standards at schools across the State.

To monitor the functioning of these panels, the S&ME department has also constituted a State level school safety advisory committee in which the Development Commissioner will be the ex-officio chairperson and Principal Secretary of the department the co-chairperson.

Besides, Secretaries of Panchayati Raj, Health and Family Welfare as well as child right specialist for UNICEF are its members.