CBSE wants schools to get attached to nearest hospital

Following the Pradyuman Thakur murder in Gurgaon’s Ryan school, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is mulling to make it mandatory for all schools (both government and private) affiliated to CBSE to get attached to a multi-speciality hospital or nursing home situated near the school. The move is aimed at providing immediate medical attention to students at the time of an emergency as the medical rooms in schools are not equipped to handle life-threatening cases.

According to sources, the final decision in this regard would be taken after some more rounds of discussion with all concerned stakeholders. “The CBSE is working on making some of the guidelines issued by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on national school safety ‘mandatory’ to strengthen the safety in schools. Given that the NDMA in its guidelines had suggested identifying nearest hospitals for emergency treatment, the CBSE is planning to include the rule in its final guidelines,” the source said.

Explaining the rule, the source said, “Every school would have to identify the nearest hospital within the vicinity of one to five kilometres so that at the time of any medical emergency in schools, specialist doctors would be available to provide their services and students in need get prompt treatment.”

The proposal was initiated after it was found that most of the schools were not following the guidelines issued by NDMA on school safety. The final CBSE guidelines, which is in the final stage, would have the provision of punitive punishment if schools are found violating the norm, the source said.

There are about 18,000 schools which are affiliated to CBSE in the country, while some 5,000 schools are affiliated to Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) board.