Kids have accidents. But now parents of the 1.6 million students in middle schools, primary schools and vocational schools in Beijing can breathe a little easier with the knowledge that their kids are covered by personal injury insurance on campuses across the capital city.

The development comes with the passage of a new regulation centreing on prevention and treatment of injury and accidents in schools, which is to take effect on Thursday. The Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the city's top legislative body, earlier endorsed the new regulation in September.

Since then, more than 20 students who have been injured in school accidents have been paid by insurers, said Du Songpeng, vice-director of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission.

Guidelines for the regulation followed those in Western countries such as the United States, said director of the education commission's legal affairs department, who asked to be only recognized as Li.

While public schools are mainly insured by government, private schools are also required to insure their students, Du said.

The maximum compensation amount of an accident in a school is 4 million yuan (US$483,100), with a student receiving maximum compensation of 200,000 yuan (US$24,200) per year, according to the official.

Injury accidents among students have been a continuing problem in the capital city in recent years and disputes between schools and injured students' parents sometimes occur when proving what caused an accident is unclear.

Statistics show that Beijing-based schools paid students' economic losses in more than 360 accidents during the past three years and half of the involved schools were in disagreements with parents.

"The regulation, which is very practical in clarifying responsibility of schools, is expected to help solve the problems in dealing with injury accidents at middle and primary schools,'' Lin Wenyi, vice-director of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress said yesterday.

Schools shoulder responsibilities for education, management and protection upon students, the regulation says.

The congress noted in a stipulation that the school is not a student's legal guardian.

The regulation said that schools that fail to fulfil their duties by providing safety measures should shoulder the burden of responsibility for accidents, but force majeure and students' unknown diseases could exempt schools from being responsible.

Discipline including administrative punishment to criminal responsibility are to be doled out to school staffers who fail to fulfil their duties, according to the regulation.

Meanwhile, schools have the burden of proof in the case of proving they are not responsible, the regulation prescribes.

Unique from local regulations in other regions, the regulation emphasizes preventive measures for injury accidents, officials said.

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