Several State and district administration bodies are introducing closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras surveillance in schools either as a result of a policy decision taken by authorities or in the garb of monitoring examinations. This comes at a time when experts have time and again warned against exposing children to such surveillance measures which can be misused by malicious actors. MediaNama reviewed several tenders floated by various governmental bodies in the last few weeks and found that CCTV systems are being introduced in schools all over the country -- Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and so on. For instance, the Board of Secondary Education in Ajmer, Rajasthan floated a Rs 2 crore tender of installing CCTV cameras at examination centres for the Main Exam 2021. The bid document states that CCTV is to be provided in approximately 300 exam centres "for live observation of activities of candidates and their recording in the examination centres on the day of examination". "The installation of CCTV cameras should be made at least one day in advance from the scheduled date of examination and CCTV cameras should be functional for one hour before the scheduled time of commencement of the examination and 30 minutes after the completion of the examination," the tender said. Apart from this, 50 persons will be monitoring students from a control room to be set up by the project coordinator. Uttarakhand amping up CCTV surveillance The Udhamsinghnagar district administration in Uttarakhand recently proposed to establish CCTVs in government schools in the district.…
