Lessons on procedures and responsibilities still not 'learned'?

Responding to information about a first-grade student at Archimedes Academy Primary School being left in a car during a field trip on June 22, in a "letter" to parents, Principal of Archimedes Academy Primary School Vu Thi Bao Tram apologized, accepted responsibility and "committed that no incident will occur that will cause insecurity and affect the health and psychology of the students and their families."

Every time, after each incident, the management issues documents, directives, and requests that schools strictly implement regulations to ensure student safety. The question is, is it true that the spirit of strictly implementing safety regulations is only of interest and enthusiasm for a while, and then when the incident is gradually forgotten, the rules gradually become lax?

Requires multi-layered monitoring process

Based on the recent incident, many parents have suggested that each school that organizes school buses should develop and commit to a strict and rigorous process for picking up and dropping off students. For example, it should be mandatory for drivers to check all rows of seats when turning off the engine and confirm on the app that all students have been dropped off before moving back to the parking lot.

At the same time, the homeroom teachers of each class must also take attendance when getting off the bus. There should be two separate departments so that parallel checks can be made to avoid situations of undercounting, not counting, or miscounting.

Sharing his experience in operating the student shuttle service at Marie Curie School (Hanoi), Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khang, the school principal, said that the reason why students are left behind on the bus is because the driver and the person in charge (bus captain) do not control the bus well.

With more than 100 school buses, although signed with a service company, the process of picking up and dropping off students is set by the school. The process is built with many layers of supervision so that if one person does not fulfill their responsibilities, someone else will still find out, because students can fall asleep on the bus at any time.

There is a driver and a bus captain on the bus. The bus captain is responsible for checking the number of students on the bus, using the list (including names, addresses, and parents' phone numbers) to contact them when they are not in sight. The bus captain will then call the school's bus control center to report on the number of students who have gotten on and off the bus to the school; the time the bus arrived and returned to the assembly area, according to the military's quick reporting style. If any bus does not report, the center will call to inquire about the situation at the scheduled time.

At school, according to Mr. Khang, the homeroom teacher is responsible for taking attendance in class to see which students are absent without permission. At that time, the teacher will contact the family. If the parent reports that their child has already boarded the bus, the teacher must immediately notify the family that the child is not in class so that the family and the school can coordinate the search.

In addition, the school also organizes training and practice of safety skills for students when traveling by car such as: common rules and ways to escape in case of an accident, especially in case of being left in the car. Students are directly trained in these skills under the guidance of drivers. Accordingly, students are instructed on how to handle situations when being left in the car such as opening the sliding door, using an emergency hammer to break the glass door, using a distress signal, etc.

Must choose a reputable service provider

Some experts say that in Hanoi alone, there are currently over 100 public and private schools using school buses. The number of buses is up to thousands. This is a special form of transportation and requires a very high level of safety.

Current management regulations, if any, only stop at the level of contract vehicles such as issuing badges, installing journey monitoring devices, inspections, so there are still vehicles violating the law and sneaking into schools to pick up and drop off students.

In addition to checking paperwork, the authorities also need to check the conditions of the vehicle to ensure service quality, such as having the number of seats, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, glass-breaking hammers, and surveillance cameras to ensure the safety of students when traveling every day.

On the side of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, a leader of this department said that since the beginning of the school year, the department has issued a document guiding on ensuring school safety, in which it requires schools to pay special attention to solutions to ensure absolute safety in picking up and dropping off students for schools that organize to pick up and drop off students by car.

Accordingly, schools must choose reputable service providers, vehicles that meet technical requirements for safe operation; drivers must be aware and highly responsible, and strictly comply with regulations on ensuring traffic order and safety.

It is necessary to review the process of picking up students, managing children from home when they arrive at school and during their time at school until handing over students to their families to ensure strictness and clear responsibilities; widely announce this process to staff, teachers, employees and parents to coordinate, supervise implementation, and ensure absolute safety for students.

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