Students’ Safety On and Off Campus, Takes Priority for UGC

The Centre has decided to prioritize safety of the students studying in colleges as a primary concern. Hence, it has called upon the University Grants Commission (UGC), to frame guidelines to ensure safety of students in and off campuses across the country. These include special measures for women students, to fix accountability.

The whole concern for the safety issue is not random as it has come into light after the accident of around 24 engineering students who died of drowning in the river Beas. The incident happened at Mandi, a district in Himachal Pradesh, in June this year. This raised some serious concerns in the eyes of the government for including the safety and wellness of the students.

The issue had been raised and one of HT’s articles said that there must be a set of guidelines drafted and issued by the HRD ministry. These will work as a framework of policies on the safety of students both in campus and on college excursions. In addition to this, an education regulatory body must be there which needs to check the proper enforcement of the rules and guidelines.

An expert committee will be set up to frame guidelines for which the UGC has invited suggestions from the public and stakeholders. “It will take about a month to come up with the guidelines,” sources said on conditions of anonymity.

A public notice was recently published by the University Grants Commission following directions by the HRD ministry. It said, “The safety of students in and outside the campuses of higher educational institutions (HEIs) is a matter of paramount importance. Some incidents of the past have necessitated the review of the measures already in place in HEIs for the safety of students. The UGC has decided to frame comprehensive guidelines for all to ensure the safety of students with the help of an expert committee for study tours, field visits, excursions, industrial visits or engaged in adventure sports and other activities in particular,” the notice says.

The UGC notice seeks the views of the general public as well as vice-chancellors of all universities in this regard. It invites suggestions from the public and stakeholders, including parents, students and teachers, on measures to ensure safety of students both on and off campus – for day scholars while on campus, for students residing in hostels, for those commuting to and fro from campus, those on educational tours, study tours, field visits, adventure sports and any other activities involving travel within and abroad, special safety measures for women students and those with special needs.

As of now the policy followed by most of the educational institutes and colleges is to take an undertaking from students and their parents. This usually discharges the school/college authorities of any responsibility of the student’s safety.

With the involvement of UGC as a regulating body, this might not be the case and the institute authorities would also have to share the responsibility of the safety of their students.