Rajnath Singh flags off student police cadet programme

Gurgaon: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday launched the nationwide Student Police Cadet (SPC) programme, which aims to build a bridge between the police and school students by inculcating values and ethics in them through classes.

The ministry of home affairs-sponsored programme focuses on students of classes 8 and 9. In the initial phase, it will be implemented in all government schools in urban and rural areas across the country, an official statement had said.

Speaking at the launch here, Singh expressed hope that the SPC would lead to a silent revolution over the years by focusing on character building and imparting moral values to budding minds.

A sum of Rs 50,000 would be provided to each school for educational assistance, training and contingencies under the programme.

A sum of Rs 67 crore has already been disbursed to the states for its implementation, Singh said at the event, which was also attended by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and human resource development minister Prakash Javad-ekar Singh expressed concern that schools were creating tremendous pressure on students these days by focusing on building car-eers and rising incomes to cope with rapid modernisation and cut-throat competition.

“While the dawn of new technologies, Internet and social media have helped children keep pace with the changing times, it has also adversely impacted our society as we witness the breakdown of the traditional family system, and worrying rise in the incidents of crimes and rapes,” he added.

The SPC programme will provide a healthy interface between schools and police and help inculcate in students the aspects of public safety, discipline, patience, tolerance, empathy, respect of senior citizens, social harmony, traffic sense and a corruption-free environment, the Union minister said.

Khattar announced that participating cadets would be given preference in recruitment to the Haryana Police. The state government would soon recruit 6,000 police personnel, he added.

Javadekar said coordination would be established between the academic curriculum and the SPC programme. About four crore students of classes VIII and IX across the country would be associated with the programme, Javadekar said.  PTI CORR HMB

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