Parents, authorities take steps to make school buses safer for kids

VASHI: The recent incident of child molestation in a school bus has brought to the forefront concern of parents and the responsibility of schools in ensuring safety of students.

“All parents will agree that sending children by school buses or rented vehicle is a risk. It is very important that the responsibility is shared by parents and school authorities to ensure chil- dren’s safety. With the recent incident coming to light, the first thing I have proposed to my child’s school is to meet their bus committee,” said Simran Kapoor, a Vashi resident.

At DAV public school, Nerul, which has more than 4,000 students, the management has assured presence of a teacher in every single bus. “We have a transport committee which meets in every two months to regulate and keep a check. Also we have attendants while stu- dents board and alight from the bus,’’ said Jose Kurian, principal, DAV school.

Installing CCTV camera is another option schools are taking into consideration. Sadhu Vaswani International school, Sanpada which has already installed CCTVs and GPS in all buses for monitoring, has even proposed to parents to commute once in month with their children in buses and thus will help school authorities to make some changes if required.