Picnic with caution, experts tell schools

BHUBANESWAR: While it is great fun to go on picnics with friends and family, the season of joy also rings in a spate of illnesses thanks to the excessthat school children go through at this time.

Experts advice schools who take students out for picnics and elders who make the most of the kids staying home during winter by going on daylong outings to take preventive steps to avoid mishaps while travelling in vehicles. Doctors, meanwhile, caution against contracting the all-too-familiar cold.

Bibhu Prasad Sadangi

, director of secondary education (school and mass education department), said the department has already sent guidelines to schools about safety and security of students. " The bus should have a valid fitness certificate before starting its journey. The driver needs to have a proper driving licence," Sadangi added.

Though the department has not issued any guidelines to schools for taking steps during picnics, they have been told to follow some steps during excursions. "A guide or teacher should keep strict vigil on kids playing at the picnic spots. The kids should be barred from going near waterfalls, swimming in a river or sea and visiting dangerous areas of a forest," he added.

More than 15 persons, including students, of a school picnic bus were injured after the bus hit a truck on the CRPF flyover here on December 23. The bus, carrying 40 school students from Banpur area in Khurda district, met with the accident while it was going towards Kapilash in Dhenkanal district. A Class XII student of a city-based private school drowned while taking a bath in the sea near

Astaranga

in Puri district on December 17. The student, Pratik Mohapatra, had gone to a school picnic party.

Pritish Acharya, an educationist, said guides or family members should keep eye on the kids when they enter any water bodies or forest areas.

Timir Baran Sahu

, a paediatrics specialist of

Apollo Hospital

, said kids should take adequate wo1ollens with them on picnics.