DUBAI — Transport has been the single biggest problem plaguing pupils, parents, schools and even colleges this year.
Since the beginning of the academic year on August 31, schools and colleges have seen mostly students bearing the brunt of malfunctioning air-conditioners, delayed buses, traffic snarls, and, in some cases, no buses to pick them up.
Exorbitant and erratic hikes in bus fees by schools and college transport companies sparked widespread resentment, while the transport companies and schools blamed them on the rising costs of diesel and maintenance.Schools working short hours during Ramadan and located next to each other are also witnessing roadblocks with all their buses leaving at the same time.
The Roads and Transport Authority announced new regulations in August for all school buses in the emirate, leaving parents worried of another potential fee increase.
The new rules, as per its School Transport Manual, include mandatory seat belts, uniform yellow-painted buses, among many others. On the other hand, the RTA announced a Salik waiver for all school buses, registered with it, beginning this year.
Nearly 700 Indian High School students in Sharjah could not turn up for school during the first week of September since Sharjah Transport banned private operators from picking up people, including students, from the emirate and dropping them to Dubai unless they register themselves for the service with it.
The school has partially sorted out the problem and hopes to resolve all transport issues soon by increasing the number of buses to Sharjah.
The closure of the arterial Al Wahda road in Sharjah has also been a nightmare for schools ever since they re-opened, despite re-routing buses. At least 17 of Delhi Private School (DPS) buses were re-routed and several stops rescheduled to accommodate the two-year closure.
“We worked on the routes in the summer holidays and did a number of test drives to familiarise drivers with the new routes and also find ways to beat the traffic.
“This way, we had improvised before school re-opened. In fact, our primary wing students leave 15 minutes early and that did the trick,” said Vandana Marwaha, principal of DPS.
The decision by the Gems group to outsource buses of its nine schools in Dubai from the new academic year had several parents objecting to the increases.
While transportation fees in its mid-market, mostly Indian curriculum, schools shot up to Dh200-Dh270 from the earlier Dh120-Dh180, the upmarket international schools hiked rates between Dh600 and Dh800 from its previous Dh350 to Dh400.
Similarly, Dubai Women’s College authorities are still battling to bring down the sudden hike in the fee from Dh300 to Dh1,200 by Emirates Transport, its outsourced bus operator. The first few days of college saw students stranded without buses and relying on families to reach the campus.
The Winchester School had teething air-conditioning problems in a couple of its buses, which have now been resolved.
Located in the residential suburb of Jebel Ali and in the vicinity of an Indian school, buses face traffic problems due to the shortened Ramadan timings. Raminder Vig, principal of the school, told KT, “We did have air-conditioner problems in two of our buses and they have been sorted out.
“However, due to Ramadan, the whole school leaves at noon, causing traffic jams and also making it hard to drop all the children back home in time. We are getting three new buses soon to solve the problem,” he added.
“My child spends several hours travelling to and from school and he is exhausted by the time he returns home,” complained a parent of a student of an Indian school. According to the RTA statistics, nearly 42,000 students return home exhausted everyday due to the current ‘bad administration’ by school buses.
For several pupils and parents, getting to school and coming back home continue to be a nightmare due to these several issues.
Preeti Kannan