Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s (KHDA) has decided to increase the school bus capacity to 100 per cent and the children of 6 and more years of age would be required to wear masks to attend class work.
These decisions have been hailed by the school principals who said increasing the school bus capacity will bring relief to working parents and relieve them from worry about their child’s transport.
The KHDA protocol has said that each student should be given a designated, pee-assigned seat.
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CEO of The Indian High Group of Schools, Punit MK Vasu, said increasing the capacity has come as a massive relief to community school operators and will be helpful for working parents to use the “safe and secure school transport for their kids.”
Punit said that this will bring face-to-face learning to “right normal.”
The schools have also been advised to refer to the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) guidelines for further details on the management of COVID-19 protocols. Among them are temperature screening while entering a bus and disallowing a person with a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius.
The bus passengers except for children younger than six must wear masks and the schools have been asked to maintain bus hygiene by following the appropriate sanitisation and physical distancing standards in accordance with RTA’s guidelines for public transportation.
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Nargish Khambatta, principal of GEMS Modern Academy and vice president of education said that schools are “breathing a sigh of relief” after these measures.
Steve Burnell, managing director of school transport services, said safety and well-being of students, employees, and everyone “we engage with will always be our priority.”
Among other safety protocols include maintenance of all records of bus passengers and the in the buses using swipe cards for registration the cards and the swipe machine should be regularly sanitised with the process to be supervised by a bus attendant. The signage has to be put inside the bus to guide children in hygienic practices including respiratory hygiene, waste management and adequate disinfection practices should be followed, especially if children use back seat pockets and bins. (AW)
