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Teachers call for better school safety measures after deadly accidents
Teachers have called on education authorities to revamp school safety systems, including building designs, following a string of incidents this year that have resulted in accidental student deaths because of faulty school railings and collapsing buildings.
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Study hard: Students study in their classroom in SMPN 10 junior high school in Gulung hamlet, Ruan village, East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). The local administration plans to construct a new building for the school. (JP/Markus Makur)
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eachers have called on education authorities to revamp school safety systems, including building designs, following a string of incidents this year that have resulted in accidental student deaths because of faulty school railings and collapsing buildings.
Federation of Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI) secretary-general Heru Purnomo said in a statement on Friday that the group has recorded at least five incidents of students falling off school buildings since the start of the year. Of these five cases, four incidents had resulted in deaths, while one incident caused two students to suffer injuries.
The most recent case occurred last week in a state high school in Bandung City, West Java. Two students were reportedly leaning on the second-floor railing of their school building when it collapsed. The two students survived the incident after receiving medical attention.
Also in October, a student from a state middle school in West Jakarta slipped out of the school’s fourth floor window when he was reportedly attempting to sneak out of his classroom to smoke cigarettes. He immediately fell to his death.
Both incidents happened during recess and when there were no teachers around.
In late September, a female elementary student from South Jakarta reportedly fell to her death from the school building’s fourth floor. The case, however, remains shrouded in uncertainty, as the school claims that the girl fell accidentally while her family says that she committed suicide after heavy bullying from her peers.
Similar incidents also happened in May and January, which ended with two other students falling to their deaths from school buildings.
