Schools hire bus aides after fatal accidents

A series of fatal accidents involving schoolchildren has prompted the authorities to hire bus monitors in an effort to prevent further tragedy. Officials have allocated Dh10million to recruit the monitors, who will start in the coming weeks. A five-year-old girl at the Sharjah International School died in hospital this week after being knocked down by a speeding car while crossing the road near her school bus.
In late February, shortly after a four-year-old kindergarten pupil in Ras al Khaimah was killed while getting off a school bus, the Ministry of Education announced that all state and private schools would have to hire escorts to ride on buses with primary schoolchildren. State schools will pay the monitors Dh500 a month. Rashid al Nuaimi, the director general of the Ministry of Education, said officials were concerned about two accidents that had caused the deaths of a state school and a private school pupil. He did not specify which incidents he was referring to, but in the last year, bus-related accidents have taken the lives of several schoolchildren in the Emirates.
In March 2008, two girls aged five and 14 were killed by a car as they got off their bus in Ras al Khaimah. Last April, a three-year-old boy died of apparent suffocation in Abu Dhabi after being left on a school bus at the end of its rounds. "We have had quite a few problems before we had the monitors - kids standing up, and bullying," said Anthony Otway, an adviser at the Al Asimah Primary School in Shamkah, which began hiring bus monitors this year. "There is just general misbehaviour when kids are on their own and the bus driver is driving so he can't do anything about it."
A principal at a boys' school in Ras al Khaimah said the new funds would make a difference as he could not cover the cost of hiring bus monitors. "It needs a big budget," he said. "It's a very im rtant step to secure the life of the students especially after the incidents this year." Tina Hathorn, a principal adviser to two schools in Abu Dhabi, Salama bint Butti and Um al Emarat school in Al Shamkha, said the ministry should hire monitors for secondary students as well.
"I think it's important that they have them at every level," Ms Hathorn said. "I know that at the high school level, girls will refuse to get off the bus where they are supposed to get off. It would be good to have someone to monitor their behaviour on the bus." An official from Sharjah's Education Zone told the National on Monday that the Ministry of Education was finalising a transport safety code that schools must abide by as a condition of retaining their licence.
The ministry is also working on a road safety campaign aimed at school bus drivers. Dubai took steps to address the issue last year through the Little Steps for Safety campaign, which encouraged drivers to observe a 20kph limit around schools. The Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai started the campaign in response to the alarming number of youngsters among pedestrian fatalities; last year in Dubai, 56 children under the age of 10 died in road accidents.
Shelly Gold, principal adviser at Al Taqadom P mary School in Al Shamkha, said the ministry was making the ri t decision. "It's always important to put the safety of students first." Clive Pierrepont, director of communications for Taaleem, which operates seven private schools n the Emirates, said he would not consider putting a child on a bus without a monitor. "For the safely of the students it is vitally important," he said.
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