Tag Archives: traffic
Students urged to pursue excellence
Students urged to pursue excellence (Wam) / 9 September 2013 His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Sunday paid an inspection visit to two schools in Dubai — the Granada School for Primary Education and the Al Nokhba (Elite) Model School in Al Mazhar area. The visits come within the framework of Shaikh Mohammed’s interest in pursuing excellence in the field of education for students in the UAE. He was accorded a warm welcome by the students and teaching and administrative staff of the two schools. Shaikh Mohammed toured the Granada School where he met with the students and congratulated them on the start of the new academic year. He wished them success and high performance. He also inspected the activities in the classes at the schools. At Al Nokhba Model School, Shaikh Mohammed was briefed by a computer science teacher on the performance of students. He also toured the school and inspected the new equipment installed this academic year. Shaikh Mohammed expressed pleasure at sharing with the students their happiness to come back to schools. He wished them success in their studies and efforts towards a bright future for them and for the UAE. Al Qattami visits Fujairah schools Humaid Al Qattami, Minister of Education, on Sunday visited several schools in Fujairah and Seiji neighbourhood marking the reopening schools. He joined the students as they sang the national anthem and hoisted the national flag. Al Qattami was briefed on the preparations made by schools for the new academic year and ordered immediate provision of anything they lacked. Saluting the national flag and singing the national anthem with students is a stress on the ministry’s efforts towards reinforcing the national identity and values of loyalty and inculcating them among students said Al Qattami. He added that his programme of visiting schools will continue throughout the year. Getting back to class after the summer break Olivia Olarte-Ulherr Classes started on Sunday on a high note with a number of government schools having nearly perfect attendance. Abdulaziz Ahmed, principal of Al Aasima School in Al Shamkha, said 95 per cent of his students turned up on the first day. He expects all the boys to be present the next day. “We have a very good first day with welcome activities for our Grade 1 students. We have characters and toys and we showed them around our school,” he said. Dr Abdullatif Al Shamsi at the Applied Technology High School in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. — Supplied photo Classes officially started soon after with teachers and students being in classrooms till 1pm, as per the official school timing. “We have a very good attendance,” said another school principal on Abu Dhabi. A school for girls in Al Shahama also saw hundred per cent attendance. In Baniyas, Umm Abdulla avoided waking up her son to go to school on Sunday. “It’s just the first day of school and maybe teachers will not teach yet,” she reasoned. But Abdulla, who will begin Grade 5 this year, woke-up early on his own to get ready for school. “I am excited to go to school because I miss my friends. We have not seen each other since the school break and I have so much to tell them about my holiday,” he said. At the Institute of Applied Technology (IAT), classes reopened on Sunday with two new campuses in Ajman for girls and boys. All of IAT’s now nine campuses have 5,016 enrollees and 100 per cent attendance on Sunday. “On the first day of school, we have 100 per cent attendance because we notified students early on that we will start our work on the first day. All lessons at IAT are very important and they can’t miss any lesson,” said Dr. Abdullatif Al Shamsi, general manager of IAT. IAT, which offers career-based technical education at the secondary and tertiary levels, has a very strict attendance policy. For this academic year, 5,200 students applied at IAT but only 1,850 candidates were chosen for Applied Technology High School, a 38 per cent increase from students last year. All new students underwent a two-week workshop in English, Math and Science prior to the opening of classes to prepare them for their course works. IAT also hired an additional 150 teachers this year, to complete its 600 teachers. Private schools Across the emirate, in the Western Region, Asian International Private School in Madinat Zayed, resumed classes last week after a two-month summer break. According to principal Molly D’Coutho, attendance was 93 per cent on the first day. “Now we have 99 per cent. Parents who went on vacation wrote to us saying that they could not come back last week due to the high airfare. Now we’re on regular stream,” she said. For students who went on holiday, the principal had tasked them to “get closer with their grandparents, uncles and aunties” and write anecdotes about them. The aim was to get the students build better relations with relatives back home, said D’Coutho. The stories were read by the students during the school assembly. Students’ safety In keeping with students’ safety on the back-to-school day, the Abu Dhabi Police in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) launched a new campaign aimed at enhancing the level of traffic safety for students this new academic year. The ‘Students’ safety is everyone’s responsibility’ drive on Sunday at Khalifa City A featured awareness programmes and an exhibition on traffic safety. The campaign targets schools, parents, education authorities, school administrations, school bus drivers and other participants. “The safety of our students is not only the responsibility of one entity, but a collaborative process in which the society becomes an extended family for the students. Let us embrace our duty to protect these students from traffic accidents and create a culture of safety awareness,” said Brigadier Hussein Ahmed Al Harthi, director of the Traffic and Patrols Directorate at the Abu Dhabi Police. “This requires drivers to be extra alert to the presence of students on the roads, particularly in the hours when students are coming to school in the morning, or leaving school in the afternoon,” he added. For the campaign, the police have drafted a comprehensive plan that includes intensified patrols at areas of traffic congestion around schools in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western Region. “We urge all parents to avoid making abrupt stops in undesignated areas when collecting their children outside schools, as this leads to traffic congestion and accidents. Traffic awareness messages will also be delivered to parents through their children,” Al Harthi said. These include educational videos that focus on basic safety rules, the importance of seat belts and child seats, and the golden rule for use of the school bus. Mohammed Salem Al Dhaheri, executive director of School Operations at Adec, has urged all schools to abide by the safety standards of school buses and ensure that all mechanical aspects of the buses are satisfactory, in order to provide safe transportation for students. He also encouraged all school bus drivers to abide by traffic safety rules, such as, avoiding overloading and only letting students disembark at designated areas. The campaign will continue throughout the year as part of the ‘Together’ initiative (www.uae-together.com). Safety messages have been spread though social networks Facebook (UAETogether), Twitter and YouTube. olivia@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Time is over for Abu Dhabi govt staff to relocate
Time is over for Abu Dhabi govt staff to relocate Silvia Radan (Special Report) / 1 September 2013 Abu Dhabi govt employees who shift base from other emirates may find bigger space for a little more money, but their working spouses will now have the highway blue The deadline for Abu Dhabi government employees living outside the emirate to move to the capital has arrived. Starting today, thousands of Dubai and Sharjah residents working for a government office in Abu Dhabi should no longer be commuting. However, the first expected effect of this move, traffic ease on the Abu Dhabi – Dubai highway, has not been visible. “In the past couple of months I had to drive several times to Dubai and the traffic was as heavy as always,” said Diana Oliver, a six-year resident of Abu Dhabi. “I presume this decision was made to reduce the highway traffic, which would also lessen the environmental impact with less pollution on the roads, and also the traffic accidents, especially in the early morning hours when fog often occurs,” she said. Oliver recently moved to Khalifa City, just outside Abu Dhabi, where she is taking care of her two young children, but her husband is still driving daily to work into the city and feels the traffic has become heavier here. “He needs to leave five to 10 minutes earlier every morning since the end of Ramadan. Mind you, this may be also because of people returning from holidays and work hours going back to normal,” Oliver said. The family moved to Khalifa City in March this year, at a time when the property market was still reasonable. Since then, rent for both small apartments and villas have gone up gradually. Government employees living outside Abu Dhabi had over a year to change their residence and many preferred to do it earlier rather than at the last minute, to beat the expected rent rise – which economists say rose about eight per cent in the first quarter of the year alone. Among them was B.M., who spoke with Khaleej Times anonymously since most Abu Dhabi government employees are not allowed to speak publically without a prior approval. “We moved in April to avoid rents going up. We got a much better deal here than we had in Dubai,” he said. B.M. used to live in a flat in Dubai Marina, with one parking space. Now he and his family stay in a three bedroom villa in Al Reef, with a garden and a driveway for four cars – useful since his wife drives to work and needs her own car. “Last year we paid nearly Dh90,000 for the flat in Marina, but rents in Dubai are going up as the job market is improving, so this year we would have ended up paying almost the same as we do here, in Al Reef – Dh 110,000. And you can’t compare a villa with a flat; we have got more space now and a green area outdoors,” said B.M. Moving house, especially for a family with two children was not a cheap affair. In B.M.’s case, the cost was Dh8,000. Of this, Dh6,000 was the moving company costs, the rest being other related fees. According to various moving companies, the cost of relocating from Dubai to Abu Dhabi is mostly the charges for packing and unpacking – it only adds about Dh300-500 per truck. For B.M. it was certainly pricy, yet worth it. Living at a 15-minute drive from work, in a more comfortable house had made life much better for him, he said, with the added bonus of finding a good nearby school for his children. But it’s not happy days for everyone. “It’s all good for me, but now my wife has to commute. She has a really good job in Dubai and doesn’t want to leave it, so she drives there daily. I guess a lot of people in our situation do the same, so the highway traffic may ease off on one side, but pick up on the other.” The close proximity to the Dubai highway, where many family members of those who had to move still work and where social lives are often centred, is a reason for many to search for accommodation in areas such as Al Reef, Al Raha Gardens and Khalifa City. The rents are also much lower than downtown Abu Dhabi. For single individuals, Khalifa City remains the “Mecca”, with good facilities and a location near Abu Dhabi city centre, Dubai, Yas Island and Al Ain. Yet, Khalifa City is a red light for anyone looking for a flat. Intended for Emiratis who were granted land to build their homes there, most private developers built villas, got it approved by the municipality, then leased it to a real estate agency, which has split the villa into apartments – then rented to individuals illegally. Most people, especially those new to Abu Dhabi, were unaware of the legal status, and followed a fairly simple procedure of viewing properties with real estate agents, finding one they liked, signing the contract and moving in. Regular municipality raids in Khalifa City have now drawn tenants’ attention to the illegal status, and because their rent contract does not bear the municipality stamp some are landed with a fine and told they have two weeks to move out. Getting the rent back is out of the question, as the real estate companies are not found at fault by anyone, while those licensed by the municipality continue to rent out illegal properties to anyone who doesn’t know the rules. “Etihad Airways, which has its headquarters in Khalifa City, had 200 employees this year who lost their rentals and had to move out of their homes in Khalifa City,” revealed M.T., a new Etihad employee who moved from Dubai to Abu Dhabi a couple of months ago. “Initially I was planning to find accommodation in Khalifa City, but we were told to stay away from it as most villa flats come with illegal contracts. Only when you rent out a full villa do you get the municipality approved stamp on the contract,” she added. M.T. has found a Dh60,000 one bedroom flat in the 15 minutes drive further away Al Reef, which is Dh10,000 more expensive and smaller in space than what she initially found in Khalifa City, but at least she has “peace of mind”. silvia@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Oil slick after diesel tanker overturns
Oil slick after diesel tanker overturns Ahmed Shaaban / 31 August 2013 An Asian man sustained several injuries after the diesel tanker he was driving overturned, spilling its contents, in Ras Al Khaimah on Thursday night. According to a senior police officer, the traffic accident, the second in a month, damaged part of the concrete median of the Etihad bridge where the tanker overturned. Lt-Col Ahmed Al Samm Al Naqbi, Acting Director of the RAK Traffic and Patrols Department, said the tanker driver was to be blamed for the mishap as he was the one who lost control over the steering wheel and crashed into the concrete median. “He veered off the road, ran into and broke part of the concrete median of the bridge, and overturned on the left side.” The Central Operations Room of the RAK Police, on being alerted about the accident, dispatched the police, traffic patrols, and rescue teams to the scene. “The rescue team safely pulled out the injured driver who was stuck in the damaged tanker, and shifted him to the hospital for treatment and medical care.” Lt-Col Al Naqbi said all the diesel that the tanker was carrying spilled on to the road, covering a wide area. “The concerned authorities, in collaboration with the RAK Civil Defence department, swiftly swung in action and cleaned the road, ensuring a smooth flow of traffic.” The authorities closed the road under the bridge after the accident and shifted the tanker hanging up from the middle on the bridge wall. Al Naqbi urged all motorists and truck drivers to be more cautious and attentive on the road and abide by the set rules and regulations. “Heavy truck drivers are advised to take enough rest when they feel tired, sleepy or unwell so as not to put their lives or the lives of other road users in danger.” Earlier this month, a collision between a water tanker and pick-up truck, had damaged a 55-metre-long concrete part of the Etihad Bridge, in the direction of Al Faisal Road. The pick-up driver, a 75-year-old Emirati man, received several injuries due to the accident. Director-General of Central Operations at the RAK Police Brigadier Ghanem Ahmed Ghanem, said the 33-year old driver of the water tanker, also received minor injuries and was to blame for the accident. A tougher unified traffic law with higher fines and a black points system was implemented in 2008 all over the country, in order to encourage safer driving, especially amid the high incidence of traffic accidents involving heavy duty vehicles. ahmedshaaban@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
