Dubai: Citytech, a national company specialised in control systems, has launched an awareness campaign in cooperation with a number of public and private schools to ensure the safety of students on school buses as part of a plan to introduce hi-tech security control systems and install them in buses.
Nabeel Ahmad, Citytech Director General and Coordinator General of the campaign, said the campaign aims to identify problems facing students travelling to and from school by bus and raise the awareness of schoolchildren and their parents about the importance of the installation of security control systems in school busses to ensure the safety of students.
“The launch of this campaign comes in line with efforts by both government and private parties to enhance the safety of students travelling daily to and from their schools, especially that several problems and tragic incidents took place across the country recently,” Ahmad said
He attributed problems and school bus accidents to the lack of control by bus drivers and school supervisors as well as student misbehaviours, which need to be well addressed and examined carefully by all parties concerned so as to find proper solutions that would lead to curbing school bus accidents and ensure the safety and comfort of all students when travelling.
'“The new high technology comprises cameras and compact video recorders to be introduced for the first time in the UAE and GCC countries,” Ahmad said.
He noted that this latest technology is used to record and take footages of every thing happening during school bus trips through cameras installed in and outside the bus and connected with screens placed in the front of the bus to enable drivers and supervisors to watch and monitor what is happening in the bus. The bus device then sends automatically these audio and video tapes to the school through a wireless technology.
Principals of schools participating in the campaign unanimously stressed the importance of enhancing the concept of safety on school buses within the school learning system because the safety of students is one of the basic pillars of the educational system.
Mohammad Robeen, Headmaster of Al Ahliya Charity Schools, said the introduction of this hi-tech security technology would help cut fights between students on school buses and make sure that drivers are adhered to prescribed speed limits and the prescribed traffic route.
“It will also help reduce the number of accidents, especially hit accidents and suffocation cases which happened in some school busses in the country recently,” Robeen said.
He stressed the importance of collective efforts by all parties involved in the learning process to enhance the culture of school transport safety among students, school administrations and parents who are all responsible for ensuring the safety of pupils when travelling to and form their schools.
