The unsafe corridors

"I am Vipul Parekh,
My daughter went missing at Shimla bridge during her school visit Please pass on the info to your friends and groups.....

Any info please inform at :9569601532
Missing date : 9th May 2015"

This post is from my  facebook page .someone sent it to me and i dutifully sent it to others. But this confirms one of the worst nightmares for parents as well as school authorities in the current scenario. Everything which ,we once felt was sacred to building up a good school life for children is getting defeated. One of these is the school trip.

A school trip is supposed to foster bonhomie , camraderie, bring  the children and the teachers closer, but are all these goals being met? Instead, there are horror stories of children getting lost , things getting stolen or, some children feeling dreary as they feel left out . In colleges too, this is happening. Just recently, we heard about a devastating freak flood that claimed the lives of a group of college students who went too close to a dam.The accident occurred because of lack of supervision.Mostly.

There are so many stories of children getting killed on the way to school or on their way back, that one would be truly shocked ,if one knew them.Just last year, a friend's son died right outside his school.He was hit by a motorcycle ,which thundered at him, in spite of the sign, " Drive Slow. School ahead."

Children studying in government schools are not privileged enough to get buses. i have often wondered why? In Delhi, some public buses run for some private schools.These are very privileged private schools. But no one accepts that the children from municipal schools also may need protection. I have seen them running in groups on the streets.in Chennai, without any shoes.In Delhi , they clamber on the roofs of public buses and in Mumbai's crowded trains many fall as they hang on to the doorway in passenger trains. 

No one thinks that safety training should be a part of education. No one accepts that discipline is something to be learnt in school and then made a part of our everyday existence.