Ahmedabad’s education authorities have directed every government, aided, unaided and board-affiliated school in the city to install a confidential complaint box for students under the Sarathi Suraksha Sankalp — Safe School, Safe Childhood project. The initiative is intended to give children a fear-free channel to report problems, seek help and receive timely guidance.
The directive has been issued by the office of the Ahmedabad city district education officer as part of a broader effort to build safer and more sensitive educational environments. The programme covers concerns that students may face inside and around schools, including food safety, road safety, cyber safety, campus security, bullying, harassment, discrimination and mental stress.
Under the initiative, schools will establish a ‘Samvedna Peti – Sarathi Helpline’ through which students can submit complaints, suggestions or requests for assistance in writing. The instructions state that, where possible, students will not be required to disclose their names. This is intended to allow children to raise concerns without fear or hesitation.
Schools have also been directed to protect the confidentiality of submissions, maintain appropriate records and arrange timely resolution. Serious child-safety complaints, including physical violence, sexual harassment and risks of self-harm, will require immediate action in accordance with applicable law, according to the programme details reported by Nav Gujarat Samay.
The project also requires every school to form a five-member Sarathi Safety Club. The club will be headed by the school principal and include one male teacher, one female teacher, one male student representative and one female student representative. Its responsibilities will include supporting a safe school environment and organising activities that improve awareness of safety issues.
Schools must conduct at least one safety-related awareness activity every month. The activities listed in the directive include essay writing, drawing, public speaking, plays and mock drills. These measures place responsibility not only on individual teachers or administrators but also on schools as institutions to create regular channels for identifying and addressing student concerns.
The programme is being implemented across schools run under different management structures and educational boards, making the complaint-box system a common child-safety mechanism across Ahmedabad’s school network. Its effectiveness will depend on whether students can access the boxes easily, whether complaints are handled confidentially and whether serious cases are escalated without delay.
More than 300 schools had already established the Sarathi Suraksha Sankalp initiative at the time of the announcement. The education authorities’ directive requires the remaining schools covered by the programme to adopt the Samvedna Peti and constitute their safety clubs as part of the city-wide child-protection effort.
