Tuesday 31 / December / 2024
Muscat: A safe transport plan, which was initiated by the Ministry of Education (MoE) for school students with the Mwasalat bus service is still in limbo as the parties involved can’t come to an agreement with the price of services, according to an official at the Ministry.
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In the wake of the recent bus accidents involving school children, the Ministry of Education (MOE) last year undertook efforts to implement the Mwasalat bus service for the transportation of students of private schools in the country to ensure better safety standards. The plan hasn’t been realised yet owing to a few factors including the price of services.
“We had a meeting with Mwasalat last year and have tried asking schools to hire their services, but some private schools cannot afford it. A few schools are using Mwasalat, like the Azzan Bin Qais International School (ABQIS) has been using Mwasalat’s services for its school transport for about four years now, but the smaller schools cannot pay for the services.” Fathiya al Owaisi, Director of the Ministry’s Quality Assurance department told the Times of Oman.
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However, the Mwasalat side of the story has justified their pricing system calling it reasonable. “Our prices are justified because of our quality- in terms of the bus servicing and maintenance, number of qualified drivers, number of buses. We can’t compromise on the safety and quality; our buses have been operating with zero injuries till date. Moreover our prices cover administrative costs, it’s not for profit making.” said Ahmed Ali al Bulushi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mwasalat.
The debate saw participation from a lot of schools who were willing to hire the services of Mwasalat in their transport system, however it did not happen quite possibly because of the cost issues, according to al Owaisi.
“We really need Mwasalat services for schools because they have a standard of safety in their buses, they have everything the students’ need.” she added
To resolve the issue, al Owaisi said that another meeting is perhaps needed. “We need to meet with Mwasalat to facilitate the process. Some of the schools have smaller contractors on board to run their buses but some of these companies don’t have safety standards.” the official added.
Meanwhile, Wilson George, Board of Directors of the Indians Schools in Oman said that the board was in the process of implementing a safe transport system for all the Indian Schools in Oman, and that three among the 19 Indian Schools have already seen this change.
“The Indian Schools in Oman had never contracted with bus companies for the transportation of their students, it is always the parents who have done that on an individual basis. However now we are hiring the services of bus contractors officially, implementing the safe transport system and keeping a watch on their safety and monitoring standards.”
It must be noted that there have been several bus accidents in the past few years where children have been inflicted with injuries, sometimes even turning fatal. Recently, an Indian School al Wadi al Kabir’s Class 1 student had been admitted to Khoula hospital, following an accident which occurred when the student was trying to get down from the bus near her home. Another Class III student of the Indian School al Seeb was dragged several meters along the road by a school bus after falling over as he boarded.
Early this year, a school bus carrying students from Indian School Nizwa collided with a truck, killing the two drivers, three students and a teacher on the spot, and injuring several others. In January 2014, a school bus carrying Pakistan School Muscat pupils crashed into a rubbish truck, killing three children and injuring others.
Important points mentioned in the circular which is sent to schools every year (last sent on September 2015)
• The school administration needs to hire supervisors in all the buses and choose bus drivers carefully
• MOE’s website (www.moe.gov.om) offers a service to parents where, if a student is absent from school, the parents will be notified
• The supervisor and driver must have a full list of students and their parents, the parents should also have the numbers of the driver and supervisor
• The school should check that the bus owner is servicing his bus regularly
• The bus driver should pick the child from in front of the house, drop them to the entrance of the school, and drop them back to the same place.
• In case if an untoward incident occurs, the school must file a report on the same
• The supervisor has to check the number of students every day and notify parents in case of a child’s absence.
• He needs to ensure that the students are sitting properly inside the bus and monitor the driving of the bus driver.
To ensure that all the points are happening, the supervisor and the principal have to sign a record that is kept in the administration. “In case of the school violating any of these points, we can stop the school from having new students in the school.” said Khadija al Salami, Deputy Director of the Directorate General of Private Schools at the Ministry of Education.
