With the increasing need to spread awareness about fire safety, the Directorate of Fire Services, Goa signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Directorate of Education under the programme titled ‘Safer School – Safer India’. The programme aims to spread awareness about fire safety in primary schools and was unveiled by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar. This is a joint initiative taken up by the Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services, Directorate of Education (State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and Underwriters Laboratories (India).
The concept of Safer School – Safer India foresees an intention to build a safer India to safeguard children and teach them how to stay safe. This intensive campaign aims to enhance the level of awareness in primary school children and through them their families. Fire safety education is to be included as part of the school curriculum with at least one period a week dedicated to this purpose. The training module is designed to create interest in children by involving them in activities that will encourage them to learn about fire prevention and safety.
“The main intention of targeting students of standard I to IV is to teach them about disaster management and fire safety measures as they are young. Besides that we have also undertaken the project to train teachers so that they can share their knowledge about fire safety with the children,” says Director of Fire and Emergency Services, Ashok Menon.
In the first phase of this programme in 2015, ‘Training of Trainers’ was imparted to 46 primary school teachers from 27 schools of Tiswadi by the department. The training, which was also provided in software to enable them to carry out the training at their respective schools, included various aspects of fire safety . To observe the implementation of safer schools, an evaluation was conducted early this year. “As of now, all the schools have been cooperative. The teachers and schools should respond positively to this initiative. Hence in the long run we can achieve successful results,” says Menon.
