|
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Councilor urges strict security on schools
By Lizanilla J. Amarga
UNIVERSITIES and other huge educational institutions should be more strict in implementing security measures and come up with "mechanisms" to make sure that their students will not be conned by impostors posing as legitimate lecturers or examiners.
City Councilor Benjamin Jose Benaldo, head of the committee on education, commented on recent police reports regarding how over 20 cellular phones were stolen from an entire nursing class by a person who posed as a substitute teacher.
"Schools should heighten their security and make sure that everyone who enters its premises are properly identified," he said.
Agora police precinct chief, Senior Inspector Salvador Radam, earlier confirmed that the students of an entire nursing class in one of the city's huge universities were recently tricked into giving their cellular phones by a woman posing as a substitute teacher.
He said the suspect had been engaged in this modus operandi for sometime.
"This modus is the same as a person posing as a maid and then waiting for a chance to steal from her employer," he said.
A university official confirmed the incident but declined to comment, saying the incident may damage their reputation.
The official said the incident had also occurred in other universities and schools.
Backgrounds
Benaldo said schools and universities, particularly those with thousands of students, must have a "mechanism" in checking out their teachers particularly those who are temporarily hired as instructors, lecturers or examiners.
"They should check their ranks and make sure that the backgrounds of those they are hiring are properly looked into first," he said.
Police reported that there were around 20 cellular phones carted off by this impostor but nursing students and a teacher of the university concerned who requested said there were actually 31 cellular phones taken away.
"Many of the cellular phones were what we call high-end ones even those of the expensive kind that are equipped with video cameras," one student said in the dialect.
They recounted how they were made to attend a lecture at their AVR with a woman who introduced herself as a certain "Mae" who is taking over as their regular instructor was absent.
One student said Mae was wearing a mask that covered half of her face at that time because she was supposedly allergic to the chalk's dust.
"Mae really acted as a lecturer and even made simulations," one student commented adding that many believed in what Mae was saying.
At one point, Mae told the nursing students that they were going to play a game and that she needed their cellular phones for it.
The nursing students said Mae collected their cellular phones in a plastic bag and asked to leave for a while but never came back.
They said some of them went to inform the security guards in the hopes that Mae would be found.
"But the security guards did not actually act on our request immediately," one said.
The student added that one of them checked the back gate of their university and saw Mae being picked up by what looked like a very new Toyota Revo.
They said they have already informed the university owners and officials but weeks have already passed still there has been no word from them.
(August 31, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
|
