School Student Safety Challenges And Effective Solutions

Our children deserve an education, an education that allows them to think freely and express themselves, an education that empowers them to charter their own path in life. Schools are meant to be a safe space where our kids learn and free their minds. But, are our children safe? We hear every day, of a new case of harassment, bullying or corporal punishment. Horrifying cases in the recent past have raised genuine concerns in our minds for our children’s safety.

The major student safety issues that need to dealt with include:

Sexual Harassment and assault are vastly under-reported in institutions. It impacts the ability of the survivor to learn and grow. Many schools make it difficult for survivors of sexual assault to come forward and report their abuse. It is so important to have a mechanism in place that recognises & punishes perpetrators of this kind of violence, and acts as a deterrent.

Kidnapping of young children is another growing area of concern with reports that suggest that there is a constant increase in the crime rate. A child goes missing – whose responsibility is it? Is it the schools? The parents? How can we ensure our kids return home safe and sound?

Accidents – From bus accidents to accidents in the playground – our children are prone to hurting themselves while at school. How can we prevent this? It will be wrong to say, that a school can be accident-free but yes measures can be taken to avoid them and when such an unfortunate incident occurs, report and react in time.

Bullying is a major problem that every school faces. Bullying can be physical, verbal or psychological and now with the advent of social media, it has only become uglier . Cyberbullying is a growing concern that leaves many young children vulnerable to abuse. Schools and parents need to understand and watch behavioural changes in children. Bullying can be avoided in school by adopting a preventative approach by –

● Educating students, parents and teachers about bullying and its harmful effects.

● Imposing restriction on recording devices like phones in schools to avoid cyberbullying.

In recognition of these threats, the United Nations sustainable development goal 4 advocates for upgrading education facilities to provide a safe non-violent learning environment. It is sad but if a child is unsafe in his/her own surroundings then we as a society have definitely failed.

School management system – A BIG relief

While technology has proved to be both a bane and boon of our existence, we could use it to fight this problem and create a safe environment for children in schools. Asti Infotech’s TRAKOM aims to provide a reliable solution to tackle security issues in schools using cutting-edge technology.

TRAKOM, is a GPS and RFID technology based solution to track and monitor school buses and students. GPS provides real-time updates on School bus location with ETA, alerts for delays or change in the bus route and RFID technology ensures tracking of students while they enter or exit the school bus as well as their presence in school premises. It is therefore a one-stop school security solution that provides:

● Student bus tracking system Using RFID and GPS technology TRAKOM ensures

Real-time monitoring of buses on the move The GPS enables real-time monitoring of buses, and helps school management in easily tracking unplanned or unscheduled stops, whether the bus is moving on time, sudden traffic jams or any other possible emergency.

Peace of mind for parents Parents app is the perfect solution for all the questions of worried parents. SMS and notifications enable parents to get notified about child’s safety, RFID-based entry into buses is delivered to parents with the location of boarding and deboarding the bus with timestamps. 
Along with this, a GPS-based tracking solution allows remote tracking of the current location of school buses.

Informed drivers for a safer journey Along with parents and schools, it is also of great help for the drivers of the buses. If a change of driver takes place, the app can help him to easily know the route and stoppages. In case of jams or road closures, GPS can help the driver to immediately reroute the bus.

Optimized and efficient management for Schools With the GPS technology, efficient routes can be planned for the buses to avoid traffic and road closures. This help schools save energy and time by automated route planning and scheduling of bus stops.

● RFID in school premises

This technology can be used to track students inside school premises. It lets you know where each student is in real-time and helps in automating attendance for students and staff. This helps in ensuring that students do not bunk and leave school premises as well as avoid incidents like students getting locked in a classroom or a washroom. Alarms or alerts can be generated by providing the whereabouts of the students in case they enter a restricted area or leave school premises before time. With this technology, school or parents can track the student in real-time.

Solutions like TRAKOM provide RFID based IDs and software to manage it. RFID IDs have other benefits too.

● It helps schools in their go green initiative by using the paperless attendance method.

● Attendance is more accurate, hassle-free and quick.

● The digital data is available for analysis at any time.

With an RFID based attendance system, parents can always be part of it through SMS and notifications. RFID attendance system can further be extended to staff and teachers and allow the administration to better manage resources.

• Face recognition based student attendance in school premises

Artificial intelligence-based technology can be used in schools to avoid proxies and wrong intentions as well as avoid incidents such as a student misplacing the ID or forgetting it at home, bus or classroom. Schools can install a face recognition attendance system to provide a transparent and secure mode of attendance.

• Smart communication

Communication is a very important aspect in building trust between the school and parents. It is always a good practice for schools to keep parents informed. The most important aspect of using technology for our benefits and requirement is to adopt an appropriate communication model and user-friendly interface. Right communication increases efficiency, helps the school stay better organised.TRAKOM’s smart communication module is user friendly, easy to handle and it comprises three main components:

• Admin control plan – through which a notice can be broadcast to all students/staff and amendments can be made.

• Mentor/educator app which allows sharing of homework assignments, bi-directional messaging and individual messaging facility.

• Parent app which allows active participation of parents in daily school activities by providing messaging facility, noticeboard, homework, attendance, event, calendars, etc.

TRAKOM by Asti Infotech is one solution to all problems which need to be addressed by schools to provide a secure and well-managed environment for our kids to grow and evolve as well as to put every parents’ daily worries at rest. As Lon Watters said, “School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.” So let’s make it a bright, strong and safe tomorrow.