Representative image of students entering school bus.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: The Department of School Education has made it mandatory for private schools to get police verification certificates for school van/bus drivers and helpers and upload the same on the Students Achievement Tracking System (SATS) portal.
In a circular, the commissioner of the department has asked school managements to compulsorily get the certificates in view of the the increase in the number of child abuse cases during school transportation.
The certificates should be renewed once in two years. “We have issued this circular to ensure the safety of students. Along with the certification, it has been made mandatory to hire only female helpers for school vehicles,” a senior official of the department said.
The circular requires the drivers and helpers to sign the school register twice a day. They must sign the register when they drop the children at school in the morning. Again, after dropping them home, they must come back to the school and sign the register.
It is the responsibility of Block Education Officers to verify if schools are following the safety guidelines for transportation services.
Other safety instructions include the installation of CCTVs on school vehicles and restricting the number of children for each vehicle as specified under the Karnataka Motor Vehicle Act 1989 amended in 2012.
Welcoming the step, the private school managements urged the state government to do the certification free of cost. “In private schools, the staff who are on board today may quit after two months. Getting the certificates now and then will be a burden for the institutions. We request the government to make it free of cost,” said D Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka.