Extra police and security staff stood guard yesterday as parents dropped off their children on the first day of classes in China since dozens of students were injured in three back-to-back attacks on schools last week.
In Beijing, police cars flashed lights outside some schools as guards in orange vests watched students enter gates. Guards in Guangzhou prevented parents from entering school premises without special permission. Parents in Shanghai discussed ways to strengthen security at kindergartens.
Child safety is an issue that touches nerves across Chinese society, particularly among members of the urban middle class who invest huge amounts of money and effort in the education and care of their only children.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The education system in China is under pressure to strengthen security after the attacks, the latest of which was on Friday last week when a farmer struck five students with a hammer at a primary school in Weifang before pouring gasoline over his body and burning to death. No children were seriously hurt.
Parents in Beijing said they were glad to see the new security measures on the first day of school after a three-day public holiday.
“I was a little worried after seeing those reports on TV about the attacks,” said Liu Xingwu, who sent his seven-year-old granddaughter by bicycle to Shijia Elementary School in central Beijing. “The security measures are good. But we’ve also told her to be careful. ... If there are any problems, call the police.”
School security has been an increased focus for over a month since a man stabbed eight elementary schoolchildren to death in March in Fujian Province. That attacker was executed on April 28, the same day a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong Province, and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife.
Then on Thursday last week in Taixing city in Jiangsu Province, a 47-year-old unemployed man armed with a 20cm knife wounded 29 kindergarten students — five of them seriously — plus two teachers and a security guard.
The Ministry of Public Security issued an emergency notice on Saturday to police departments around the country to strengthen patrols in and around schools at the beginning and end of the school day, as well as to inspect small hotels, Internet cafes and “recreational sites” next to schools.
“We must take fast action to strengthen security for schools and kindergartens to create a harmonious environment for children to study and grow up,” senior Chinese Communist Party leader Zhou Yongkang (周永康) told a conference on maintaining stability on Monday, Xinhua news agency said.
Some are taking the ministry’s directives to heart. In Chongqing, a city of over 30 million people, orders are for police to shoot to kill anyone attempting to harm students.
“The police have clear regulations in these odious cases where direct attacks occurring at or in the vicinity of schools have injured students or children,” the Chongqing Evening News reported on Monday.
At Shijia Elementary in Beijing, two guards stationed at the main entrance raised their arms to block parents accompanying their children past the stainless steel gate.
“Our main objective is to take safety precautions,” said Zhang Xinxiong, a teacher in charge of security. “These days every family has only one child, so of course they are expected to be worried.”
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