Students complain of school bus ordeal
Originally published in Gulf Times on September 18, 2007
STUDENTS and parents have complained about the harrowing experience of travelling in buses run by Asian expatriate schools, particularly during the peak summer months.
Many of the buses lack proper air conditioning and are overcrowded, they said. Travelling in such conditions saps the students’ energy and leaves them in no mood to study, some parents said.
One girl student said: “Twice a day, I have to endure the heat in the crowded bus, while standing throughout the journey.”
Another student recounted a worse ordeal. “For a whole year we didn’t have an air-conditioned bus and I would bleed heavily from the nose due to the heat. The driver would stop at water coolers on the road so I could wash away the blood,” she said.
According to her, most of the buses in her school are air-conditioned now.
Another student of an expatriate school said she suffered from asthma and experienced shortness of breath when the bus was overcrowded. “By the time I get home, I’m about to faint.”
Spokesmen for most of the schools admitted that they have had incidents of children being dehydrated, vomiting or fainting due to lack of air-conditioning and overcrowding in the buses, but they said they could not be blamed as parents insisted on signing up for transportation even when all seats were taken.
“Upon a new admission, we make it clear to the parents that there are no seats available on their route, but they plead to be accommodated, forcing us to take one more student on the already crowded bus,” said Haroon Khan, principal of Ideal Indian School.
Khan said the school’s fleet of old and new buses underwent regular maintenance, but admitted the air conditioning sometimes broke down.
Khan was also against the idea of turning the air conditioning on in the buses some 10 minutes prior to the students’ boarding, in order to reduce the heat that had built up.
“Imagine 20 buses idling, with all the ACs blasting. That is certainly not a healthy contribution to the environment on our part,” he said.
An official of MES Indian School acknowledged that there was a problem. “A fleet of about 80 buses, catering to more than 4,500 students, is bound to have breakdowns every now and then,” he said.
“We are in the process of getting five new air-conditioned buses soon,” the official added.
Pak Shama School principal Nabila Kaukab said: “We have both AC and nonAC buses and the fees for their usage are priced accordingly. So there is no room for any complaint from any quarter.”
Kaukab said her school planned to acquire three new buses.
Shafiq-uddin, principal of Bangladesh MHMH School, said: “We have 19 buses, of which five are non-AC GMC buses and we use them solely as our backup.”
Social activists and community members have blamed the lack of transparency in running “community schools” as one of the reasons for the situation.
They said the accounts of these schools, which enjoy many incentives from the government, should be audited by their embassies or the government. Only then would the public know whether the schools could provide better transportation to the students at affordable prices.
A K Shrivastava, principal of Birla Public School, said the only solution to the problem “lies in the schools buying more new buses.”
As Published
