Schools must assign staff to help students cross roads safely: PM Hasina

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said the educational institutions up to higher secondary level must assign their own staff to make sure their students cross roads safely.

"Though traffic police will be there to help them, the school authorities must be careful and their own staff will have to be there so that students can cross roads safely…I think our Education Ministry can issue a directive to the schools ---from primary to higher secondary levels-- in this regard," she said.   

The prime minister said this while inaugurating the four newly constructed projects implemented under the Road Transport and Highways Division, joining a programme virtually from her official Ganobhaban residence.

The projects are Pedestrian Underpass adjacent to Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School under Dhaka Airport Highway, Sylhet City Bypass-Garrison Link 4-lane Highway, Balukhali (Cox's Bazar)-Ghundhum (Bandarban) Border Link-Road, and 500-metre Bridge over Chengi River at Naniarchar in Rangamati district.

The premier asked the education ministry to take initiatives for directing every educational institution up to higher secondary level to keep its staff on adjacent road points to help students and prevent the loss of lives to accidents.  

Because, she said, students are reluctant about paying heed to the instructions of others in many cases. "If there's anyone from the school authorities, they'll follow his or her instructions," she said, adding that every school will take the initiative on their own.

In 2018, the prime minister had promised to construct the underpass, four days after Diya Khanam Mim and Abdul Karim Rajib, first-year students of the college, were killed as a bus ploughed into some students in front of Kurmitola General Hospital on Airport Road in the capital on 29 July.

Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation of the underpass on 12 August, 2018. 

On 4 August that year, she provided the five buses for the students of the college after the family members of the two students and the principal of the college met her on 2 August.

Public representatives, government officials, army officers and other concerned were connected from three other places – the underpass area in Dhaka, Naniarchar and Sylhet Cantonment.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader was present at the virtual event conducted by prime minister's Principal Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus.

Chief of Army Staff SM Shafiuddin Ahmed, Secretary of Road Transport and Highways Division Md Nazrul Islam, Engineer in Chief of Bangladesh Army Major General Ibne Fazal Shayekhuzzaman spoke on the occasion. 

The projects were implemented by the Bangladesh Army.