Dubai: The safety of school children continues to be a concern.
Parents often complain school bus drivers and attendants are putting their children's lives at risk.
School principals say drivers have to deal with a lot of stress, often induced by parents, which can also prove dangerous on the road.
This highlights the necessity of recruiting well-trained drivers.
As the debate ensues on what measures are needed to prevent accidents involving school buses and children, parents, bus drivers and bus attendants often blame one another.
Tragic stories of pupils getting knocked down by school buses or pupils being seriously injured on buses due to the absence of bus attendants or their negligence, have been making headlines recently.
Gulf News is bringing a series of articles to its readers that will get all parties involved, allowing everyone to give their point of view.
This includes schools and parents, attendants and school bus drivers, the pupils themselves and the authorities.
Training
The first in this series looks at what schools and parents have to say on the very important issue of school buses and safety.
Abha Sehgal, principal of the Delhi Private School in Sharjah, said their school provides training sessions for its bus drivers twice a year.
Every bus has an attendant and his job is to make sure that children are seated.
The attendant also assists children when they board and alight from the bus, and occasionally helps them to cross the street.
"The drivers should only drive away when they get the green signal from the attendants. Both the drivers and the attendants are to report any problems with the bus or with the pupils to the school immediately.
"They are not supposed to touch any child. They are allowed to talk to them, and if they feel the children are not listening, they should report this to the school. They are trained to be vigilant."
She said parents are often found hassling the driver and they seem not to understand that drivers should not be put under stress.
"Often there is a verbal battle going on between the driver and the parent.
"There are times when the parent gets onto the bus and threatens the driver that he would lose his job or be deported.
"This is unnecessary. Drivers may have made a mistake but there is a way to deal with this. The parents call the driver on his mobile and disturb him while he is still driving. This causes more stress," said Sehgal.
Al Sa'ada Public School is one of quite a number of schools in the public schools system that lack supervisors in their buses, said the principal.
They have compensated for the absence of an attending supervisor by placing two students from higher grades (grade 4 or 5) to help organise student seating, as all students have to be seated in their designated place.
Supervisor
These are allocated at the beginning of the academic year.
"We have supervisors attending in the parking lot to ensure they all get onto the bus safely and that no one is left behind.
"However, it would be better to place a supervisor with the girls in the bus, especially as we have children as young as five years old," said Hind Lootah, school principal.
Fawzia Al Khaja, vice-principal of an elementary public school in Dubai, said recently an Emirati parent insisted that his daughter be dropped off at their doorstep as the bus driver used to stop on the opposite side of the road. It took him more than half an hour because of heavy traffic to make a U-turn.
"We see many situations similar to this one. If we had a supervisor she or he could have easily walked the child to the other side of the road without having to wait that long. You will notice that most accidents, if not all, occur because of the absence of a supervisor," she said.
In response to a Gulf News story on a five-year-old who died in a school bus accident earlier this month, Fatima Al Merri, CEO of the Schools Agency, said: "The Dubai Schools Agency deplores the accidental death of a schoolchild and supports all efforts by the Dubai police and the RTA to ensure road safety and that all drivers are well-trained. We are working across government departments on ways to improve standards in these areas.
"We will not rest until we can assure the safety and security of all students."
All voices heard: Gulf News campaign
Gulf News is bringing a series of articles to its readers that will get all parties involved in the ongoing arguments over school buses giving their point of view. This includes schools and parents, attendants and school bus drivers, pupils and the authorities.
Dubai Vinisha Diwan, an Indian. said: "The driver of the school bus which my five-year-old daughter uses is rude to her. Every day I get a complaint that she had been shouted at by the driver for getting onto the bus late. There are days when she makes excuses for not going to school by bus."
Khuloud, an Emirati, said: "My boys are a little naughty, I must admit. The oldest is nine and the younger one is seven. One day the younger one said he had been shouted at by the school bus attendant. I complained to the school."
Lisa, a Sri Lankan mother, said: "My daughter is in grade 2 and one day she complained that the attendant had pinched her on her thighs. I was furious. I reported this to the school and now take her myself."
Do you know of any international best practice? How could they be implemented in the UAE?
By Sunita Menon and Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporters