ABU DHABI // Parents of pupils at an Abu Dhabi school are angry their children are being taken to school in buses without air conditioning.
Children attending Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Arab Pakistan School have to travel for up to an hour a day in buses without air conditioning as temperatures exceed 40°C which, parents said, put the pupils’ lives in danger.
The National reported in September last year that the school, which is in Al Zafranah and has about 2,000 students, was using buses with broken air-conditioning units.
More than six months later, during a visit to the school last Tuesday, the air conditioning was not working on four out of seven buses, leaving students sweltering.
Under Abu Dhabi Department of Transport rules developed with education officials and police, schools must operate enough air-conditioned buses for all pupils, with separate buses for male and female students age 12 and older.
“We complained to the school management, but they don’t do anything,” said parent M A, whose children take the bus every day. “When we receive our children, their uniforms are wet from sweating.”
Parents also complained of what they described as carelessness when children got on the bus.
“They receive the child very quickly and start driving before the child settles down on his seat,” the father said.
“Their hurried attitude is visible even when they drop [the children] off.”
Amjad Khan, assistant to the principal, said the air conditioning units had been broken for about two months but that the school aimed to fix the units within four days.
Pupils complained about feeling hot on their trips to and from school as well as the poor condition of the buses.
Temperatures are baking by the time pupils board at 12.45pm each day, after the buses sat parked for hours under the sun, they said.
“Yes, I’m feeling hot,” said a KG-1 pupil on a bus without air conditioning. A KG-2 pupil, S S, whose face had turned red from the heat, said the air conditioning had not worked for many days. “It should be fixed,” the pupil said.
“Our buses are in very poor and pathetic condition. Seats are torn and iron nails are exposed,” said H K, a Grade 5 student.
Pupils said windows and doors were left open while the buses were in motion.
“When the bus is running on the main road, the main door of the bus remains open as well as windows. No safety measures are exercised,” said A K, a Grade 8 student.
Another parent, P J, said the situation was not acceptable.
“Before the weather was cool, but now it’s unacceptable,” said P J. “I am very concerned about the health of children travelling on faulty buses under such harsh weather conditions. Every day my child returns home soaked in sweat.”
anwar@thenational.ae
