Girl students to get self defence training in Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: Aimed at the safety and well-being of girls and to ensure their physical and mental self-dependency under Mission Shakti phase four, the Yogi Adityanath government will impart self defence training in the upper primary and composite schools.

A government spokesman said here on Sunday that owing to the sustained efforts of CM Yogi and his policy of zero tolerance against crime and criminals in the last five and a half years, there has been a significant decline in crimes against women in the state.

"To ensure their proper security, the girl students will be trained under the 'Rani Laxmi Bai Self Defence' training programme," he said.

Director General, school education, Vijay Kiran Anand has issued detailed guidelines for successfully conducting the self defence programme. The main purpose of self defence training is to make girls physically and mentally self-dependent so that they can face and tackle any odd situation without being conflicted.

Following the mantra of attack is the most suitable weapon for self defence, an action plan for the training of the girls has been prepared. This training will compulsorily start in December and will be conducted till February next year.

Health and physical education instructors and sports teachers of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) will provide training to all the girls studying in the school during the prescribed period for physical education, sports, arts and music.

The training will be conducted under the supervision of the headmaster of the school. Apart from this, a teacher of the schools will also be included during the training, who will be continuously present during the training period of the girls.

During the warm-up activities in the first week of the programme, a mock drill will be conducted with the children making them aware of the safety measures, laws and helpline numbers. For easy reference, a booklet developed by the Women and Child Protection Organisation Headquarters, 1090 Lucknow, based on important laws regarding crimes against women and children, will also be read and discussed in detail with the children.

At present, a total of 10,158 health and physical education instructors and 10,904 instructors and teachers are working in 746 KGBVs in upper primary schools, and composite schools under Samagra Shiksha.

Self-defence training has been provided to health and physical education instructors and KGBV sports teachers at the district and block levels in the past years and last year self defence training was organised in schools through the same health and physical education instructors.

For the year 2022-23 as well, health and physical education instructors and sports teachers will provide self defence training to girls in their schools. (UNI)