Dubai: Ahead of the new school year that starts next week, government-owned Emirates Transport (ET), the largest provider of school transport in the UAE, has launched its annual training programme for school bus drivers and onboard supervisors.
Its ‘School Transport Week’ programme covers training, awareness lectures and activities for thousands of drivers and supervisors at various ET work sites throughout the country, in cooperation with a number of government and private entities.
Jasim Al Marzouqi, executive director of school transport at ET, said the initiative seeks to ensure a successful and effective delivery of transport services for all students in schools, colleges and universities on the first day of academic year. The programme is also to ensure the dedicated work teams are fully prepared to carry out the work tasks and ensure that all requirements of the school transport service are met.
Refresher course
He added that, during the initiative, all bus drivers and supervisors will be enrolled in intensive refresher training and awareness courses with the aim of enhancing their skills and capabilities, and reminding them of the rules and procedures required to provide safe and efficient transport services of the highest standard.
The training will cover a wide range of topics such as student safety procedures, elements of safe driving, first aid and emergency bus evacuation. The week will also see intensive trial runs of buses on their assigned daily routes to and from government and private schools all over the country.
Al Marzouqi also stated that ET has completed all plans to ensure the readiness of the transport fleet serving the education sector, including the completion of preventive and periodic vehicle maintenance operations, and ensuring that all the security and safety systems on school buses are fully operational, in addition to meeting all the precautionary and preventive health measures required by the relevant authorities in the country.
For the upcoming academic year, ET will provide school transport service for 170,000 students studying in 504 government schools, using 4,161 buses, 4,200 drivers and 4,500 bus supervisors. Additionally, the number of transported students from universities, colleges and other educational institutions stands at more than 16,000, with more than 800 buses and 800 drivers allocated to provide the service for them.
