Chinese lawmakers are considering amending law to require schools and kindergartens to improve emergency response plans so as to better cope with incidents that might hurt the minors.

 

The draft amendment to the law on the protection of minors was tabled to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, Sunday in Beijing for the third reading.

 

It says educational institutions, schools and kindergartens should have plans in response to various accidents like natural disasters, outbreak of infectious diseases, food poisoning and unexpected injuries.

 

It also requires educational institutions to rehearse their response plans regularly and make more efforts to improve students' awareness and capacity of self protection.

 

School safety has set off alarm bells in China with frequent reports of tragic accidents in which students got killed or injured.

 

Weeks ago, six students in east China's Jiangxi Province were trampled to death and 39 injured when hundreds of students at the school in Duchang County swarmed out of evening classes and onto the stairway.

 

Also in November, eight primary school students were killed and nine more seriously injured when the bus carrying them fell off a six-meter-high bridge in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2006)