AL AIN // Police officers stood guard yesterday to prevent high school students who had finished their exams taking part in a traditional end-of-term celebration – ripping up textbooks and leaving them strewn around the streets.
The students were surprised to find 38 community police officers stationed outside schools after classes finished.
“At high schools all over the Emirates, students tear up their textbooks after exams to celebrate,” said Mohammed Khalfan al Shamisi, a community police officer assigned to Al Maqam Al Thanawiya High School.
“This ruins the image of our city as it pollutes our roads. But more importantly, it is disrespectful of Islam as the textbooks contain the name of Allah and Quranic verses. We can’t have Quranic verses lying in the street alongside the trash.”
Mr Shamisi said that when the issue of damage to the Quran was explained to students, they understood why the police had acted.
“One student today jokingly told me, ‘In Spain people celebrate by throwing tomatoes, so why can’t we celebrate by throwing our books?’,” Mr Shamisi said.
The trend of defacing textbooks has been passed from one GCC country to the next. In Saudi Arabia, students trap the pages in the doors and windows of their cars, causing them to flap in the wind as they drive.
It is a practice the traffic police and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice also tried to stop.
In Al Ain, community police officers also advised students against reckless driving, driving without a licence, destruction of public and private property and general mischief.
Mr Shamisi said the students he had spoken to were happy to spend a few minutes with him – while a few may have found a career.
“Some even asked me how they could be community police officers,” he said.
Essam al Ghalib
Page last updated 01 January 2020