Edu dept conducts week-long ‘violence against children’ campaign

CHENNAI: To address repeated cases of sexual harassment and suicides among government school students, the School Education Department held a week-long prevention of violence against children campaign, concluding on Thursday.

Department officials said that more such events will be held in future. In this regard, various awareness activities were conducted at all government, government-aided and private schools across Tamil Nadu. Also, part of which, all teachers and non-teaching staff in the school took a pledge insisting the need to prevent violence against children.

Further, students were informed on the child helpline number 1098 and Tamil Nadu school helpline number 14417.

Additionally, students took self-assessment test, which had questions regarding their experiences and challenges faced at class and within the school premises.

The school education department has further directed all school teachers, principals and members of District Child Protection Units (DCPU) to hold a meeting with all School Management Committees (SMCs) at each school on November 26.

Speaking to DT Next, an official said, “The violence against children campaign is a start for a long awareness programme planned out by the education department. We have also planned to go through the letters dropped by students at the boxes kept at schools under the Manavar Manasu (student’s mind). This has a high possibility to reveal any harassment or bullying cases students are going through.”

Further, the official said that talks are in the primary stage for planning a committee at each school that will deal and inquire about reported cases. “As reporting the incident is still a challenge among students or any member of the school, we are focusing on creating an environment or a committee that will report the incident and not repress it,” added the official.