Schools in India’s capital plan to livestream classes after alleged crimes against students

gabriel__bostan/iStock/Thinkstock(DELHI, India) — State-run schools in India’s capital, Delhi, will soon provide a live feed of classrooms parents access on their mobile phones, on the heels of serious crimes alleged to have been committed against students.

The goal, Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal said, is to “make the whole system transparent and accountable” and ensure the children’s safety.

Parents will be able to watch their children at school on a real-time basis, through a feed from closed-circuit TV cameras that will be installed in all classrooms and other spaces at government-run schools, Kejriwal said in a tweet.

The process to install CCTV cameras would start in three months, The Hindustan Times reported, and the government is still developing the mobile app that will stream the live feed.

The government said it plans to include a complaint feature in the mobile app, so if parents spot anything wrong, they can use it to report the activity.

The affected schools cater to children between the ages of 3 and 16 years old.

Many parents have expressed support of the move on social media, after a young child was found with his throat slit in a school bathroom and the alleged rape of a five-year old girl in another school.

However, critics say that having the city’s children and teachers under constant surveillance may not help the situation and is unfair, and it will likely be used as a disciplinary tool.

Thousands of schools in China have already installed webcams in classrooms, from kindergarten to college. But after a critical article in the New York Times reported on them, several schools halted the broadcasts.

The Telegraph reported last year that teachers in at least two English schools had been using body cameras, similar to those worn by police, to control student’s behavior.

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