Schools were advised to close early today as heavy rain and winds lashed the country.
The Ministry of Education recommended to principals that they send children home at 10am .
“The students’ safety is a priority,” said Ali Al Suwaidi, assistant undersecretary at the ministry.
In Dubai, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority issued this advisory: “Due to extreme weather conditions, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority has advised all schools and nurseries in Dubai to close for the day to ensure children get home safely.”
Abu Dhabi Education Council advised public and private schools to ask parents to pick up their children no later than noon “due to unstable weather”.
One Emirati parent, Ayesha Al Janahi, agreed with the decision to close the schools but was frustrated by the short notice given.
She received a call from a teacher at 11am asking her to pick up her three-year-old son, Essa, who attends Uptown School in Dubai.
“It was sudden,” Mrs Al Janahi said. “I am on annual leave but some of the families are working, they don’t have anyone to go and pick up their children. It’s very difficult.”
She said parents should have been warned yesterday to keep their children at home.
“One day before, they should have said, ‘You don’t have to bring your children’,” Mrs Al Janahi said. “Everyone was rushing and just wanted to drop off their children and it was kind of chaos.
“The school should have said, ‘You know what? You shouldn’t bring your children today’.”
Armilee Sastrillo, a mother of two boys at the Philippine School in Dubai, agreed that the weather conditions were too risky to keep her children at school.
“I would rather them be safe at home rather than be travelling in heavy rain,” she said.
But Mrs Sastrillo was disappointed with the way her boys’ school informed parents – the bus assistant called to say her 13-year-old son was being driven home.
“That’s one error that they have, that’s one disappointment,” she said. “For me it’s OK because I have a nanny who can take care of them and pick them up but for parents who don’t have nannies, it’s a big problem.
“I had employees today who had to go home, ask permission from me, because the school suddenly announced that they had to pick up their children.”
Another mother, whose two children attend Raha International School in Abu Dhabi, agreed that poor communication between the schools and parents created unnecessary “havoc”. She found out through her children, who borrowed a friend’s phone to call their father.
The mother, who asked not to be named, phoned the school three times but her calls were not answered.
“It was just frustrating,” she said. “When I went to the school, it was like havoc.”
She claimed many students were walking out of the school’s unguarded gates alone and a few were hailing taxis to get home.
“This should have been handled much, much better and it was not well organised how they were letting the kids leave,” she said. “There was no communication between the parents and the school.”
The mother said the school should have sent parents text messages to notify them.
“Or even allowing the classroom teachers to send a general email to all the parents,” she said. “I feel sorry for the parents who actually have work and who cannot get to the kids.”
A teacher at the school said: “There were numerous messages sent via our school communicator 6Delta to all parents all morning updating them on the situation. Children that were not collected by a certain time were personally informed.”
Abu Dhabi Education Council said it was the responsibility of the schools to communicate the closure to the parents by noon.
If parents were unable to pick up their children by then, the schools should keep them under supervision until they could be collected.
The rain has also forced the delay of examinations scheduled today at adult centres and for home-schooled students. They have been rescheduled for December 4.
rpennington@thenational.ae
