GIDM

The National Education Policy, 2020 lays down the goal of every educational institution- “A good educational institution is one in which each student feels welcomed and cared for, where a safe and stimulating learning environment exists, where a wide range of learning experiences are offered, and where good physical infrastructure and appropriate resources conducive to learning are available to all students. Attaining these qualities must be the goal of every educational institution.”

‘School Safety and Security’ has been defined as the creation of safe environments for children starting from their homes to their schools and back. This includes safety from large-scale 'natural' hazards of geological/climatic origin, human-made risks, pandemics, violence as well as more frequent and smaller-scale fires, transportation and other related emergencies, environmental threats and violence that can adversely affect the lives of children.

Ministry of Education mentions that- School academic and non-academic personnel, such as, principal, teachers, students, etc., spend around 1/3 part of a day, and around 220 days in a year in schools in India. Therefore, if classes are held for six hours a day, a child spends 22% of their waking time in a year in a day school. In a residential school on the other hand, a child spends 60% of their life during schooling years in the school. Schools are thus, accountable for a substantial chunk of the child’s life, and have a huge responsibility to make the stay in schools of all children comfortable, joyful, secure and safe. Therefore, it is important for the school that everyone concerned with school education should understand their clear roles and responsibility towards school safety and security.

Right to Education is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India. In order to facilitate access of all children in the country with respect to the Right to Education, it is important to ensure that children remain safe as they access and enjoy their Right to Education.

Realising evident gaps in achieving the goals, GIDM in support with Samagra Shiksha Gujarat and UNICEF Gujarat Field Office has developed a self-paced course on school safety and security highlighting key aspects. The initiative contributes towards spreading awareness by making the policy guidelines available in the context of roles and responsibilities of different key stakeholders in the simplest and understandable format.

The course is composed of 5 learning modules which has videos, assorted reading materials and quiz.

Module 1: Let’s understand School Safety and Security

'Let's understand school safety and security' is the first module of the e-course. The focus is on understanding school safety as a concept and how all the stakeholders are supposed to ensure school safety and security.

Module 2: School Disaster Risk Management

The second module, School Disaster Risk Management, would highlight the concept of understanding disaster risks and its components and the overall cycle of Disaster Risk Management in a school context.

Module 3: Safe Learning Facility

Safe Learning Facility is the third module of the e-course that talks about risks concerning structural and non-structural elements, Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH) facilities and the Physical & Mental health of students.

Module 4: Safety and Security of Children in School

The fourth module would talk about understanding and identifying violence (Physical, Sexual, Emotional and Online/Cyber), child protection machinery structure and reporting mechanism, child rights legislation and roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders.

Module 5: School Disaster Risk Management Plan

The fifth and the last module on 'School Disaster Risk Management Plan' would help participants learn about development of School Disaster Risk Management Plan (SDRMP) by identifying risks and developing risk reduction actions/ activities including preparedness, response and recovery measures at the school level.

The details of the course is available on GIDM’s portal, at https://gidm.gujarat.gov.in/en/learning-management-system. The glimpses of the course is available on the sam page and also on YouTube at...

• 1. To enrol, you would need to register yourself by clicking on the ENROLL NOW button on the page. This will take you to the Learning Management System (LMS) of GIDM. You would be required to create a new account by clicking on ‘Don't have an account? Create one’ and you would be directed to the Course Registration Page.
• 2. After successful registration, you would receive an e-mail with your username (which is the email address that you used for registration) and password.
• 3. To start the course, you would then be required to access (log-in) the LMS at https://gidm.lms.gov.in/default.aspx , with your username and password.
• 4. Once you have logged-in, click on the course titled “School Safety and Security”. This would take you to the Course Page, where you would be able to see all the content of the course like videos, reading materials, transcripts of each session and other such information.
• 5. The course has 5 modules with assessments/quiz at the end of each unit. You would have to go through the assessments after each module to start the next one.
• 6. After the completion of the course, you would receive a completion email on your registered e-mail address and you would also be able to download your Course Certificate from the Course Page on the LMS, at the top left corner.
• 7. Since this is a self-paced course, you can continue the course at any time, from the point where you left, simply by logging-in again at https://gidm.lms.gov.in/default.aspx with your username and password.

In case of queries, you can write to eaapm-gidm@gujarat.gov.in, or, lms-gidm@gujarat.gov.in