By: Theresa Moses
School sessions can be a mix of excitement and anticipation for students. Starting a new academic session is so exciting, and students often look forward to reuniting with friends, learning new things, extracurricular activities.
As schools resume the 2023/2024 academic session, children’s security is critical and of crucial concern to governments at all levels, parents, school owners, administrators, teachers and the entire society as stakeholders.
As a result, schools should have strong safety measures in place, including implementing robust security measures, controlled access control and various entry and exit points by security personnel while emergency response plans are also perfected to meet challenging needs of influx of both old and new students.
Parents play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of their children at school. Some of the key responsibilities of parents include communication. Parents need to communicate with their children about personal safety protocols and ensure they know who to contact in case of any issues.
Parents need to stay in regular contact with teachers and school staffers to get informed about school safety measures and any other concern. Besides, educate children about personal safety, including stranger danger, appropriate online behaviour, and how to react in case of emergencies.
Monitoring a child’s physical and emotional well-being and addressing any health and wellness or bullying issues promptly is one basic issue for parents to look into; as well as ensuring safe transportation to and from school, whether by school bus, walking, or carpooling.
Parents ought to become familiar with the school’s emergency procedures and ensure their children know what to do in case of an emergency. More importantly, they should also be able to supervise the online activities of children, teach them about responsible internet use, and report any incidence in the community that might affect their school.
If there are safety concerns or security breaches at the school, parents need to work with the school administration and other parents to address them effectively. Such cases include, among others, mitigating cases of kidnapping; tightening security measures around school especially perimeter fencing and access control in a gated environment.
By actively engaging in these roles, parents can contribute to a safer school environment for their children and the entire school community.
On the other hand, schools should have a well-defined controlled entrances (Access Control) with security personnel mounting them and equipped with surveillance and Circuit Control Television (CCTV) systems in place to monitor both outside and inside premises.
In addition, provision should be made for a well-defined emergency protocols for various situations, including evacuations and medical emergencies.
Beyond these, if the school fails to do the needful, it might or can impede other beautiful measures put in place to frustrate the nuisance value of criminally-minded individuals who might want to leverage on any weak system to carry out negative intentions.
Here, the School administrators should endeavour to train teachers and staffs; send them on refresher courses or in-house trainings regularly to handle safety situations effectively and to recognize signs of distress in children.
Also using security cameras and monitoring systems to keep an eye on school grounds, entrances, and key areas for potential security threats, cannot be overemphasized. In addition, the security personnel should have the capacity, ability and requisite skills to engage or interrogate anybody – strangers or parents – they are not too familiar with while picking their wards to avoid incidences that touches the heart.
As a means of identification, issuance of identity cards or badges for students and staff, will equally well. Although, school badges might have some negative concern, when well deployed, its effectiveness is quite huge. Notably, enforcing strict visitor’s standing rules policies, requiring Sign In and Out, wear identification badges, are other measures that can be leveraged on.
It’s also paramount for the school to conduct background checks on school employees to ensure they do not pose a security risk threats, establishing and enforcing security policies and guidelines that everyone within the school community must follow.
Regular communication updates between the school and parents on safety information, including emergency contact details and procedures, should not be taken for granted. For instance, if students use school transportation, ensure drivers are vetted, vehicles are maintained, and safety regulations are followed.
Regularly reviewing and updating safety protocols is essential to adapting to changing circumstances and new challenges. However, creating a safe environment requires a collaborative efforts among schools, parents, and communities.
No matter the various internal security measures enunciated, without collaborating with law enforcement agencies, the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and other agencies and perfect understanding other domesticated security apparatuses, to share information and respond effectively to potential threats, it will not be an uhuru in an attempt to fortify security network in and around a school.
Primarily, the whole idea or primary goal is to create a safe learning environment for students and a secured workplace for staffs of such institution. Therefore, a safe learning environment guarantees a safer future and greater economic prosperity.
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