SC guidelines on safe transport of school children continue to be flouted

The lives of eight school children were snuffed out on Tuesday, when the mini-van carrying them had a head on collision with a private bus near their school, in Kundapur, Karnataka. Newspapers on Wednesday reported that the mini-van was carrying 17 school children. Twelve persons, including the person driving the minivan, his school teacher wife and their son were injured. Heavy rain and poor visibility on the National Highway 66 only made driving difficult for both the vehicles.

While there will be an inquiry committee to ascertain blame, on who or what caused the accident, the overcrowding of the school van is impossible to ignore. A mini-van, or Omni, can at best carry eight adults, with the addition of an extra seater. This fated Omni had two adults and 15 children. Add the children’s school bags and tiffin bags and you can imagine how overcrowded the vehicle must have been.    

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This accident once again brings to light the severe over-crowding in school buses, private vehicles and auto-rickshaws ferrying children to school. One look at any school auto plying on the roads and you will find anywhere between eight to 12 children commuting in them. Most of these auto-rickshaws also have school bags and tiffin boxes hanging precariously out of the auto-rickshaw.   

Just as recently as January, this year, there was another accident involving a school bus in Surat. Three students and two cooks died and three students were injured seriously, suffering permanent disabilities. The school children were on a study tour. The 36 seater bus was carrying 76 students, 11 teachers and two cooks when the driver lost control of the bus and hit the median on national highway 8D near Keshod.    The   Indian Express reported that the Surat Municipal Education Board later suspended the principal of the school.

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To be fair to the traffic police and the education department, it is not as though nothing is being done to ensure safety of our children being ferried to schools.

The Deccan Herald reported on Thursday about Bengaluru’s ‘Safe Road To School’ (SRTS) campaign launched by the traffic police in 16 schools in 2005. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation or BMTC buses were projected as “an efficient, safe and affordable” mode of transport, yet a survey conducted for the campaign showed that only 33 BMTC buses were used for school duty in the jurisdiction of 21 traffic police stations, as against 1,071 private school vans and 502 school buses. The campaign also included segregation of school timings and a ban on parking of vehicles within 200 metres of schools. Most schools now function from 8.30 am to 3.30 pm and the ban on parking is still in force and the traffic police hopes to spread the campaign to 93 schools this academic year.  Auto-rickshaw drivers are also being penalised if found to be ferrying more than six school children.  The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) joined hands with the traffic police for the SRTS campaign.

But obviously the SRTS campaign needs more muscle to make it more effective.

The Times of India reported on Thursday, that DPI had sent a charter of safety guidelines for schoolchildren and the vehicles transporting them to the government for cabinet approval. These include guidelines for school buses - equipping them with fire extinguishers, speed governors, windows covered with mesh, and one women attendant.

Many of the DPI guidelines were only complying to the Supreme Court ruling

[caption id=“attachment_1797589” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption]

in the country which came into effect in May 2013. The SC guidelines also include: yellow painted buses; display of  **‘**On school duty’ on the front and back of the bus; carrying children to the permitted seating capacity of the vehicle if they’re above 12 years old and 1 ½ times more if below 12 years; first aid box; drivers with minimum of five years driving experience and a GPS.

But many studies and surveys conducted by NGOs and media organisations across the country have found that the SC guidelines continue to be flouted in schools across the nation. Even the school buses run by the schools don’t comply to the guidelines, forget the private operators following them.

While the Supreme court guidelines are clear for school buses run by schools, what about the private transporters ferrying children? School buses do not go to every remote corner in a city and do not offer the service if children live close-by. It then falls on the parents to look for other means of transport. Private buses, auto-rickshaws, their own cars or two wheelers become the alternate mode of transport to ferry the children.

But that doesn’t bar parents from checking the vehicles that ferry their children to school, to ensure that basic safety measures are being followed in these vehicles. Parents can definitely check the private transporters from over-crowding their vehicles, ensure the drivers are qualified and that the vehicles are road worthy.

Parents find it easier to blame the school authorities and the traffic police for not ensuring order. But walk around and check out a nearby school and you will find parents parking their vehicles willy- nilly around the school, when ferrying their children. Those parents opting for their own cars to drop their children, can definitely go for car-pooling and take turns to drop the neighbourhood children. This will ensure less traffic congestion around the schools.

It’s also up to civil society to chip in and chip in too. For instance, The Indian Express reported from Chennai last year that law students blocked a mini bus ferrying students for overcrowding. The mini bus belonging to a temple was ferrying students of a school to the temple to sort out donations and temple collections. The bus was carrying 60 students. The law students got the police and school to intervene and send a second vehicle to ferry half the children from the first bus.

Meanwhile, the SRTS campaigns are very evolved in developed countries like the US and UK, where secure school buses, carpooling, safe school lanes, biking and walking lanes have been created. With the kind of traffic congestions we have in our country, we may take a long time to get there. But, hopefully it won’t be too long…after all it involves the safety of our children, who are the future of our nation.