The principal’s “third eye”

For administrators of educational institutions summer is a season of troubles, notably due to annual renovation, but not only. In spring this year the Ministry of Education and Science suggested schools principals and higher educational establishments should upgrade and install video surveillance in their institutions. This was stated in the recommendation letter dated April 11, 2011, signed by the First Deputy Minister of Education Yevhen Sulima, to the heads of general, vocational and technical, and higher educational establishments of all levels of accreditation.

“The Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sport is concerned with the information law enforcement bodies report regarding the further spread of drug addiction among young people. The epidemic of drug addiction in Ukraine is evolving: according to experts, currently the number of people using psychoactive substances exceeds 500,000 people, and they are mainly of young age,” the letter of the Ministry of Education and Science states.

Indeed, drug addiction and alcoholism in Ukraine has a young face. As a rule, everything starts at the age of 12 or 13, for both boys and girls. The information of the Ministry of Education and Science is also confirmed in the Ministry of Health, where they specify that those 500,000 comprise only consumers of injected drugs. At this, the number of drug addicts and kinds of drugs in Ukraine is constantly growing. This is not just a number, these are thousands of deaths as result of overdoses, and the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other dangerous diseases.

In his annual speech at the Verkhovna Rada two months ago, Viktor Yanukovych called drug addiction a “national threat” and requested that law enforcement bodies urgently elaborate a program for the struggle against drug addiction and drug trafficking. “Last year we declared war on drug addiction and drug trafficking. In the short term I expect relevant suggestions and action plans from the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he said. But the Ministry of Education was the first to make concrete steps.

Installing video surveillance is only a recommendation. Financing is needed, otherwise the parents will be forced to pay for “national security.” But can surveillance cameras help and decrease the number of fights or thefts in schools, or prevent the unfit behavior of teachers or children’s provocations? Can video surveillance help create a safe environment in educational establishments?

Installing closed circuit television is a widespread practice in the US and Europe. Ukraine has seen only several isolated cases of using video surveillance in schools.

“Half a year ago we installed video surveillance systems in the collegium to promote the students’ general discipline level and solve some specific situations,” Svitlana Youssef-Selezniova, director of the collegium Olimp, says. “Currently teachers use this footage to analyze their work. We don’t have fights or thefts here. But recently we had to watch video footage to find expensive things a student had lost. It turned out that the child left them in the changing room, and one of teachers noticed her belongings and took them from there so that they were not lost. Owing to the video footage one could quickly understand who can return the things to their owner. Though we don’t have to watch video footage often, the preventive goal was reached right after the system was installed. Since when children realize that school is observed, they become more disciplined and punctual. At the same time, this kind of control doesn’t humiliate human dignity, unlike the guards’ watching them.”

Educators say that they need to use video internally to solve problematic situations. We asked Dmytro Danylchenko, an expert in video surveillance, to help explain the technical issues involved.

“A video surveillance system consists of some number of video cameras, a recording device, a video registrar and a display,” Danylchenko, the executive director of the company Data Link, says. “Depending on the school size, the video surveillance system includes 4, 8 or 16 cameras. Respectively, outdoor cameras are installed at school entrances or places where students gather during the breaks and before classes. Indoor cameras observe the halls, passages and the canteen. A security person watches the events in the video. The data from video cameras are recorded by the video registrar that keeps a video archive for at least two weeks. The special software of video registrar Partizan helps set up the settings, optimizing archive video recording so that it fits the class schedule. The function ‘school bell’ allows for constant video recording from all cameras after the break bell, and after the bell for the class beginning — in motion mode within the vision range of one or another camera. School authorities address our company rarely, because a state program and financing from the state budget is necessary to install video surveillance. As a rule, private schools and educational establishments deal with us.”

But if the state doesn’t allot money for it, maybe the parents themselves could finance the video cameras to make the place where their children study safer?

“It is against the law to collect money from parents,” Oksana Bielkina, director of the specialized school No. 207, says. “We had cases when unhappy parents wrote indignant letters to higher authorities or telephoned to call centers with complaints that they were collecting money for school needs. Yet each year the school has some needs the state financing doesn’t cover, therefore principals have to ask parents, if possible, to help the school financially. The mass introduction of video surveillance in schools is only possible if there is state financing. If someone feels like fighting with a peer, breaking a tap or a window at night, the understanding that the building and the premises of the educational establishment is observed will prevent such actions.”

Ukraine should think about the state program Safe Education, which would presuppose a compulsory installation of video surveillance systems in schools and higher educational establishments. Certainly, one can complain about the lower living standards, but if we wait for better welfare in our country, we can lose more than one generation.