Working group discusses school security

LAHORE: A 17-member working group for school safety/ disaster risk reduction at the provincial level has been constituted by the School Education Department (SED) Punjab.
The group headed by the chairman of Punjab Assembly Standing Committee on Education Engineer Qamar-ul-Islam Raja held its maiden meeting on Friday.
The working group has been tasked with providing technical advisory and a decision-making body to monitor the school safety plan of action and disaster risk reduction as well as ensure concrete action planning and implementation.
Representatives of different departments including school education, Rescue 1122, literacy and non-formal basic education, communication and works, civil defence, child protection and welfare bureau, health, PDMA, girl guides association, boys scout association and UNICEF attended the meeting.
It held a detailed review of various security measures taken up by the Punjab government for saving students’ lives from any untoward incident. The meeting was told that special lectures were being delivered in schools under an MOU signed with the civil defence and Rescue 1122.
Similarly, Rescue 1122 has redesigned its school safety plans to provide sufficient safety related trainings to two representatives in each school. This training is being accorded to schools in all the 36 districts of the province.The meeting was informed that Rs 25 billion was planned to be allocated for various development works in next provincial budget.