Schools should use minibuses
Dear Sir,
This has reference to the letter “School trips to foreign countries” (Gulf Times, May 4). The Supreme Education Council (SEC) should implement strict rules for such trips and ensure they are allowed only if it is absolutely necessary.
The SEC should also act against schools which are resorting to bundling students into bigger buses for transport, to ensure high profits. An Indian school with its main campus near the Religious Complex is now transporting primary class students in such vehicles, picking them up and dropping them only on main roads despite collecting monthly transportation fees.
Previously, the same school used mini-buses to drop primary and junior class students in front of their homes. But now my child has to walk for more than 200m to board the bus which stops only on the main road and also has to walk back home another 200m in the hot summer temperatures on his return at 2pm. This is particularly sad when I see many Arabic school students being dropped right in front of their residences.
The SEC should enforce strict rules for transportation of students and should also ensure that schools have more mini-buses and not big buses to transport students in congested areas like Doha Jadeed, Matar Qadeem and Najma. The education authorities in Qatar should ask private schools to have their mini-buses, picking up and dropping primary and junior class students within only 10m from their homes.
With the SEC implementing the rule of limiting 30 students in each class, many schools are resorting to new ways to drive up profits. I request the SEC to implement strict rules and impose fines on schools violating them.
RB, (Full name and e-mail address supplied)
Shocking display
Dear Sir,
The Keralite Engineers Forum (KEF), a 20-year-old organisation with more than 500 professionals as its members, is one of the most vibrant alumni organisations in Qatar. On May 2, KEF honoured one of the greatest technocrats in India, Dr E Sreedaran, in a glittering ceremony at InterContinental Doha.
The event was attended by Qatar Rail CEO Saad Ahmed al-Muhannadi, Indian ambassador Sanjeev Arora, Qatar Rail director-internal audit Ravi Shankar, Doha-based Indian entrepreneur C K Menon and more than 300 engineers and high-ranking professionals of Qatar.
We forwarded a write-up of this mega event with photos to Gulf Times on May 3.
But when we opened Gulf Times on the morning the next day we were shocked to find that this news had appeared as a minor event in the Community supplement. It was especially so when reports of many low-priority events could find place in the “Qatar” pages in the main section on the same day.
N V Raghavan, Chairman, Keralite Engineers Forum, PO Box 200366, Doha
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