Campus safety tops agenda in new school year

Three days to go before the new school year begins, Chinese schools are making last minute preparations in and around the campus to ensure students' safety.

At a primary school in Qingchuan County of the southwestern Sichuan Province, more than 20 teachers and workers were cleaning up siltage left by flood-triggered mudslides over the past two weeks.

"We've cleaned up the classroom buildings, canteen and students' dorms," said principal Ji Zhonglan of Qiaolou Village School. "But the lawn and playground need to be cleaned before the kids come back for the fall semester on Tuesday."

Ji said the school buildings had been reinforced after a powerful earthquake in May 2008. "So they withstood the tests of this summers' flood and mudslides."

Qingping Village School in Mianzhu City, however, was destroyed, said Pan Yu, an official with the Sichuan provincial education bureau.

"Its students will start their new school year in prefabricated houses near the school," said Pan.

Though Qingping was the only school that was destroyed in the summer floods, Pan said schools across the province had launched a safety revamp. "School facilities have been sterilized and reinforced to ensure students' safety."

On May 12, 2008, the deadliest earthquake in recent memory jolted Sichuan Province, leaving some 87,000 people dead or missing and damaging close to 14,000 schools in 159 counties.

The 8.0-magnitude quake, followed by another one that killed more than 2,000 people in Yushu of northwestern Qinghai Province in April this year, sounded an alarm for campus safety across the country.

This year's summer holidays, between July and August, have been busy for school faculty and construction workers who raced to reinforce buildings.

China's capital Beijing has spent 5.3 billion yuan revamping 512 primary and secondary schools. Some schools had to end the spring semester in advance to ensure sufficient time for the revamp.

Beijing education bureau said repair work has been completed at 417 schools by this week, while most of the remaining 95 schools would hopefully reopen in a week or two.

About 1,300 students at Huajiadi Primary School in Chaoyang District in southeastern Beijing will begin their new school year in 32 prefabricated houses near the campus.

School principal Zhang Zhiqi said repair work started in mid July and would last until the end of October.

While the majority of Chinese primary and middle schools start the new semester on Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, students in the mudslides-leveled Zhouqu County, northwestern Gansu Province, came back to school on Aug. 25, a week earlier than elsewhere in China but 10 days behind their own schedule.

Zhouqu has two primary schools, two junior high schools and one senior high school. The primary schools were damaged in the mudslides.

Students of No. 1 High School, the only senior high, have been transferred to the provincial capital Lanzhou and Dingxi City for the new semester, and their school facilities are being used by pupils from the two primary schools.

The devastating mudslides which hit on Aug. 8 have killed more than 1,000 people, including scores of students and over 40 teachers.

SAFETY CONCERNS

Schools across China are stepping up safety measures by hiring security guards, installing surveillance systems and seeking help from police.

Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has told all schools to hire at least two guards, equipped with protective devices, on patrol from Sept. 1.

The guards are required to patrol around schools for an hour before and after school time, supported by police equipment including a helmet, stab-proof vest, a pair of cut-proof gloves and a rubber baton, according to the country's first-ever regulation governing the security of elementary and middle schools.

According to the regulation, visitors must show their identity cards before entering a school. Security guards have the authority to refuse admittance if they look suspicious.

Yet even in Beijing, only 1,284 out of the total 4,470 kindergartens, elementary and middle schools have hired professional security guards, according to statistics provided by the city's public security bureau.

Many schools, both public schools and those for migrants' children, were reluctant to hire guards because of the high cost, about 2,000 yuan a month for each guard.

Teachers and parents also worried about the competence of guards, many of whom were teenagers who received little training on their job.

Ministry of Education has urged schools to take students' safety as first priority and protect them from accidental injuries.

Loopholes in campus security should be quickly closed and all primary, secondary schools and kindergartens should be provided with security personnel as soon as possible, Vice Minister of Education Chen Xiaoya said Friday at a meeting.

Chen also called for intensified school safety education among both students and teachers.

Campus security has become an acute problem that caught the attention of the public after six cases of bloody school attacks took place in China within just three month from March to May 2010.

Source: Xinhua