Being an editor of a newspaper, It is inevitable for me to track every day tragic stories from across the world, varying from earthquakes, brutal killings to famines, riots and wars. And such stories last in my mind only for short while. But the smiling face of the innocent boy Fadhel Buzhuair who died inside the locked bus last month is still haunting me. Neither I had met this cute boy nor I am connected to his parents in any manner.
Such incidents had happened in other parts of GCC as well. In May 2009, a four- year-old Pakistani girl studying in a kindergarten in Abu Dhabi died after being inadvertently locked inside a private bus for at least three hours. Another four-year-old pupil was also preyed on by the destiny after he was left locked in his kindergarten van in Abu Dhabi in April 2008.
When we hear about such tragic incidents the first blame goes to the driver, then the bus in-charge, followed by the class teacher, and subsequently the principal, school management and so on. I think, the matter should not be settled in such a manner. It should be just the converse. Fault begins from the part of authorities, and trickles down to the school management and further. One may wonder why?
Science has advanced in such a manner that scientists have even begun promising a one-way trip to the Mars. When the world has advanced to such extents ,how would an innocent boy breathe his last inside a locked bus .
The authorities should implement latest technologies like GPS, RFID surveillance cameras and electronic bus attendance mandatory. If the above technology is expensive to afford it can be substituted by a simple child-safety alarm, or a child presence sensor for vehicle carrying students. The alarm will sense and alert the public if the engine gets turned off, leaving anyone inside the vehicle. To my knowledge, such alarms are available in market and it is as cheap as $25. If authorities along with educational institutions find even $25 an extravaganza ,then they should at least break one of the windows of school buses!