Protecting schools

Peshawar's Army Public School was certainly one of the best protected educational institutions in the country, yet the terrorists could strike it with an unprecedented ferocity. That is a measure of the threat the cursed maniacs pose to the schools, as to many other soft targets like bazaars, bus-stands and picnic spots. Protecting schools is certainly a huge challenge, given the very fact that these are not only easy to reach and strike a vast majority of them cannot be effectively secured also. For, each school has its own security weak points - some have large compounds, some have no boundary walls and some others are located in congested housing complexes where they share not only walls but also roofs with neighbours. Then, what can be done to provide an educational institution foolproof security it is beyond the means of many schools, especially in the private sector. For instance, in Islamabad every private school should have at least non-scalable eight feet high boundary wall topped up by two-foot barbed wire; a walkthrough gate, metal detectors, CCTV cameras, emergency exit and trained security guards on rooftop and gates. Also, the school administration should security-clear verification of pick and drop services. A school will be allowed to reopen only after the school management has secured a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the District Magistrate office on the basis of a 'yes' report issued after the mandatory security arrangements have been audited by the designated officials. Non-compliant schools will lose their registration.
That each educational institution should see to it that its campus is secure is a plausible argument. But can, and will, this happen there are some legitimate questions. One, is it feasible that every school complies with these bare minimum requirements, constrained as quite a few of these are by lack of funds, availability of trusted trained guards and safe pick and drop services? Two, what would happen to pupils whose school fails to get permission to reopen? Every private school has its own fee-structure; some may be more expensive than his or her which will not reopen. Three, what would be the fate of teachers whose school is not going to reopen, particularly of women teachers? Four, why the school-security order is being enforced in Islamabad, Punjab and KPK but not in Balochistan and Sindh minus Karachi? And finally, is there a guarantee that a school that has fully complied with the laid down security regime stays immune from a terrorist attack? Recall, the terrorists had entered the Peshawar school by scaling its high wall with the help of a ladder, as they did in case of a security complex in Karachi. There are no easy answers to these questions, or a justification that non-compliance with an order which cannot be possibly complied with should shut down educational institutions. A quick reading of the order sent to schools asking them to meet a tight deadline to achieve security objectives lends it the bias of passing the buck. It is therefore quite imperative that the concerned authorities should revisit their order and think of changes in it to make it complying. Perhaps, a more pragmatic approach could be that the government issues basic guidelines, which should help school managements to fix their security needs accordingly. At the same time the government may ask schools to appoint focal persons who should be trained in school security basics and keep them posted with updated information on how the terrorist threats play out in the country. In this case offensive defence is the best strategy; and the enemy should be confronted on his ground which is a multi-front battlefield, the various fronts being the enemy's tactical strength, financial resourcefulness and ideological appeal.