Department of Education (schools) Manipur has notified all interested stakeholders to furnish claims and objectives, suggestions for amendments/modifications to the “regulation for guidelines for hostels/boarding for students. The department is seeking to streamline rules and regulations for operating boarding and hostel in the state after the public hue and cry following clandestine functioning of these hostels and boarding schools, resulting in sexual assaults and inhuman treatment of student inmates, even causing death. 

A notification from the education (School) department stated that a guideline/rules and regulations for establishing a boarding/hostel in educational institutions in the State has long been felt without which the schools/individuals who are running such hostels/boarding’s are left to device their rules which are inadequately formulated and not uniform.

The notification comes in the wake of protest by student organisations and civil society organisations, demanding proper guidelines for hostels and boarding for students after the recent incident where a 14-year old girl student was found hanging dead inside the hostel of Standard Robarth Higher Secondary School, Imphal on July 18.

The notification further mentioned that the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) formulated a ‘regulatory Guidelines for hostels of educational institutions for children” in 2018. Some state institutions have adopted the said guidelines of NCPCR in full, or a part of it, or a modified/amended version of the said guidelines for the purpose of running of hostels for educational institutions for students.