Safer school buses are on the cards for 30,000 students attending Indian schools in the capital, with authorities announcing a monitored transport system that will kick off in the new academic year.
Wilson George, the chairman of the Board of Directors for Indian schools in Oman, said a pilot project would begin with Indian School Darsait (ISD) next month and this would be introduced to other schools at the beginning of the 2015-16 academic year.
“We are coming up with a school approved and monitored transport system starting from the next academic year,” he told local media this week.
The move comes after two deadly school bus crashes in the Sultanate last year. In January 2014, a school bus packed with students was travelling from Mabela to Pakistan School Muscat when it ploughed into a rubbish truck and overturned in Qurum.
Three students were killed in the accident (pictured above), while two were critically injured and dozens of others suffered minor to serious injuries.
Just two weeks later, in February 2014, two people were killed – a student and the driver – and 24 injured after a school bus collided with another car in Sur. This prompted calls to make school buses safer.
Mr George said accidents involving school children and the worsening traffic conditions in and around Darsait prompted the board to focus on the safe transportation of students in the area.
He added that the new transportation system would include features such as in-vehicle monitoring systems (IVMS), air conditioners, fire extinguishers, emergency exits, first-aid kits, warning devices, handrails and – most importantly – seat belts and assistants on the buses.
“In the next phase, we will be adding CCTV, rear-view cameras, stop arms and buses will be painted yellow,” Harish Sidhartha, the head of the school transportation system and a school managing committee member of the ISD, was quoted as saying.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Education issued a set of guidelines that government school buses are required to meet, while yellow will be the standard colour of all school buses.
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