UAE | Education
Parents get week to decide if they want to use outsourced buses
Parents of school children in Dubai have seven days to make up their minds about whether or not to let their wards use school transport services that are being outsourced by a private education group.
- By Sunita Menon, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:30 August 31, 2008
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Dubai: Parents of school children in Dubai have seven days to make up their minds about whether or not to let their wards use school transport services that are being outsourced by a private education group.
Global Education Management Systems (GEMS) has outsourced transport services at all its schools in the city. It has however retained operational control over the services after child safety concerns led parents to set up a new operations body, the School Transport Services (STS).
GEMS, which operates 26 schools across the country that cater to the American, Indian, International Baccalaureate and the National Curriculum of England, has decided to outsource transport in its schools to an external provider, Bright Bus Transport.
Of the 35,000 GEMS pupils in Dubai, nearly 27,500 have registered for the new bus services.
"I have not registered for the new services but today my child, a fourth-grader, took the school bus," said a parent who did not wish to be named. "I am yet to register for the new bus service."
Rising costs
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The GEMS group said it had no option but to outsource bus services to offset rising costs.
B. Gopinath, the manager of Bright Bus Transport, said: "A week's grace period has been given to parents as some of them have just returned from summer holidays. The transport service to schools is kept optional. Previously, the services were made available by the school, but now they are done by the external agency.
Colonel M.L. Augustine, managing director of STS, said one of the main concerns parents was the safety of their children.
"They wanted the same drivers and supervisors as reassurance that their children would be safe. When we sold our buses to Bright Bus Transport, we told them to use the same drivers and conductors. All the drivers and conductors fall under STS. STS gets the operating cost for paying the salary of the drivers," Augustine said.
He said all school buses would be fitted with GPS tracking systems by the end of the year and buses catering to elite GEMS schools would be fitted with television sets and videos.
"With the new rules and regulations issued by the Roads and Transport Authority the operational cost is going to double. How we are going to deal with it is yet to be seen," he said.
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