Primary School Kids in a Bus: How Safe it is?

One of these days, I was driving on NH 8 in the afternoon. In front of me, there was a school bus full of primary school children. They look really small and cute. The kids standing at the back kept waving at me and I too smiled and waved back. Though I never used to go to school by bus, it still brought back fond memories.

Now imagine someone, a conductor, a cleaner among them who is capable of physically abusing the kids! Dimag ki dahi jam jati hai soch kar bhi. No, this did not occur to me on my own. But if I imagine that bus full of small kids and if I am given this scenario, it leaves me cold and numb. Yet given the world we live in, it seems entirely possible.

In fact, it is happening to one of the kids in Delhi. She is primary school student and she travels by bus. One fine day she comes back and tells her guardian that she does not want to go school anymore. She studies in one Bal Bharati school in Delhi, don’t ask me which one, cause I don’t know. When the guardian probes she is aghast to find that the kid is being ill treated. She confronts the conductor as a first step and he turns belligerent after a while.

I do not know as of now what came out of the talks with the headmistress/headmaster of the school. But I really really wonder how do schools let a bus full of kids unsupervised? Even with supervision I may not feel confident to let my ward travel in a school bus for small kids but without supervision, I would see murder.

* I would keep updating this post, as I get more information.