Ajman hires dozens of school bus monitors

AJMAN // Dozens of men and women employed as supervisors began riding school buses this week in a joint effort by police and the Emirates Transport Corp to improve safety for pupils. At a news conference yesterday at Ajman Police headquarters, the agencies announced that Emirates Transport had so far hired 72 supervisors for the more than 100 school buses that carry 11,000 private and state school pupils.

Abdul Aziz al Suwaidi, the head of the safety section at Emirates Transport, said the supervisors already deployed were trained in safely embarking and disembarking students. The agencies planned to have a supervisor in every school bus by next year, he said. "At present, all our drivers are undergoing safety training [consisting of] about 44 lectures," he said. Col Ali Alwan, director general of Ajman Police, said: "Our campaigns are aimed at educating students, parents [and] drivers of school buses of the safety of students while loading and unloading the buses."

Most of the fatal accidents involving pupils in the range kindergarten to grade six occurred while the children were entering or leaving buses, Col Alwan said. [e-mail]