“If a suspect object is left in front of the school, what should the security guards do?”
This was just one of the questions posed by explosions experts from Beijing's Haidian District Police as they trained security guards for local schools and kindergartens recently.
It is the first time that school security guards have received training from police in the capital. A number of incidents this year, some involving children being injured or even killed, have raised fears about how well they are protected.
According to Mr. Wang, from the Security Department of Haidian's Education Commission, over 400 security guards at more than 200 of the district's schools and kindergartens have received training. The content was designed by local police and focuses on dealing with emergency and potentially dangerous situations.
According to the Haidian's Education Committee, all schools and kindergartens in the district are required to employ professional security guards and must have a vice president in charge of security.
Across the city, in Chaoyang, guards have also begun working at the kindergarten of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- the first to employ professional security guards in the eastern district.
"See you tomorrow, Uncle Policeman!" says four-year-old Wang Baobao as she salutes before leaving the kindergarten with her grandmother. The four security guards who protect them are policemen in her eyes, and she is clearly comfortable in their presence.
The guards come from Chaoyang Security Guards Company, and say they feel additional pressure here, since children are obviously less able to protect themselves than adults. The company's general manager, Kong Fanshu, says that they will provide professional guards for more than 300 schools and kindergartens in the district.
Mrs. Zhang, a mother of a child at the ministry kindergarten, said, "Of course security is the most important concern for us -- I strongly support them employing professional security guards."
(China.org.cn by Wang Sining, December 1, 2004)
