Schools lay the foundation of a child's future and hence different students from different walks of life come to schools to gain the knowledge. Irrespective of the color, race, religion, and culture, they all attend the classes under one roof. Therefore, just like elders, they are also likely to get involved in disputes causing heated arguments or fights among themselves. Moreover, the recent spate of violent and illegal incidents, such as shootout by mentally disturbed, terrorism, drug peddling, vandalism, and other such offenses have increased in various schools, which has attracted the immediate concerns for the safety of the school children. The school administrations are now seeking the professional help in order to curb such incidents.

In order to make the school a much safer place, many suggestions have been recommended by the concerned authorities. Hence, the schools are imparting the methods of combating the explosive emotional situations by imparting character building education to the students. Besides, working on the character building, the schools are now recruiting the full-time security officers in the premises. And, the most crucial method recommended to make schools a safer place for education is to cover the premises and students through surveillance security systems.

The school surveillance systems comprise the installation of the surveillance cameras at the most crucial places and areas. There are numbers of surveillance systems available that suit the requirements of the schools. These cameras may contain the features such as pan, tilt, and zoom. The preferred locations to be covered through such cameras may include outdoor and indoor places, which are prone to disputes and crimes. Such sensitive places may include the corridors, entrance, exit points, play grounds, parking lots, school buses, auditoriums and certain hidden areas where the physical surveillance is difficult to be performed. These security cameras serve as the ears and eyes of the security personnel and can even store the activities for longer durations. At the time of occurrence any incident, these security systems can recall the incidents, and thus can produce tangible evidence against the accused.

These surveillance systems work the best not involving the manpower for surveillance. So, recruiting and paying for extra manpower is ruled out at the time when such cameras have been installed. The possibility of occurrence of any untoward incidents is controlled by adopting the surveillance security systems. Now, perpetrator knows that he or she can be detected and caught quickly if involved in the incident. The centralized security system will work as the deterrent for the illegal incidents, which can immediately be controlled at the time of occurrence. If at all, any untoward incident happens in or around the school premises, the system will provide the sufficient clues and recordings of the incident, which can be produced to identify and prosecute the perpetrator. Further, the surveillance security system works as the complete peace of mind for the students and the school staff as they stay assured that everything is being watched and recorded. In addition, these security cameras also serve as the strong deterrents against any kind of theft or vandalism of the school property. The students violating the rules and discipline may be caught and punished to behave sensibly in future.

However, the groups of people opposing the surveillance security system for schools have certain valid reasons concerning the privacy issue of the school staff and the students. So, the school administration should provide some places where the students and the staff do not have any fear of being monitored through these cameras such as class rooms, rest rooms, and locker rooms. Another most important aspect of opposing the system is that a particular student may be targeted unfairly for his or her race, gender, color, or religious belief. For this, the surveillance systems should not cover the audio recordings of the school areas. Also, there is an immediate need to make the legal map of the surveillance system considering all aspects of benefits and drawbacks before covering the schools with surveillance security system.

But it certainly is need of the hour to take appropriate decision in terms of installing the security system in schools. As the incidents of violence and crimes are picking up in the schools making it difficult for the students and the staff of the schools to cope up the problem.