Parents 'need to be told how to prevent accidents'

Not enough is being done to warn  parents about basic safety hazards in the home. And the few safety programmes that do exist are far too small, according to Dr Yasser Isa Al Nuaimi, the director of Ras Al Khaimah's Ministry of Health.

Dr Al Nuaimi's views follow the death on Friday of a 13-month-old girl in RAK. She drowned after crawling into the bathroom of her family home, and falling into a partially filled bucket of water. She had been left unattended.

Part of the problem, said Dr Al Nuaimi, is deciding who the advice should be aimed at. "While there are ongoing efforts there to educate people, here in the UAE many of us depend on domestic help," he said. "Sometimes we focus on the education of the parents and we forget to educate the caregivers.

"They may come from a background where they are much less educated, so now it's the right time to focus not only on the parents, but on those people who  help the parents. We need to do something on a bigger scale. Right now, we are not doing enough."

Water safety in particular needs immediate, and constant, attention. A study at UAE University identified drowning as the third leading unintentional-?injury death among under-14s. Between 2000 and 2006, 76 children drowned.

However, that was dwarfed by injuries, which were identified as having caused the deaths of 746 children.

Worldwide, drowning is the third biggest cause of accidental death among children and adults, accounting for 7 per cent of all trauma-related deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.

The UAEU study, presented at last year's world conference on drowning prevention, concluded that poor record-keeping by the Ministry of Health had a detrimental effect on the validity of the death records and on future prevention policies.

However, Dr Taisser Atrak, the  chairman of paediatrics and chief of neonatology at Mafraq Hospital, said the UAE was on the right path. "The UAE is doing probably more than anywhere I have seen in the region, with regards to informing people about safety at home," he said. "But while there is a lot of awareness in, for example, Abu Dhabi, it's not enough. We need more people to get involved and do more public education."

More evidence-based data would help, he added.

Over the past year, there has been a spate of drownings and other preventable fatalities among children. In April 2011, the eight-year-old daughter of Indian singer K S Chitra drowned after falling into a swimming pool at a villa in Dubai.

In December, four children fell to their deaths in Sharjah in the space of just two weeks, prompting calls to educate parents on safety in high-rise homes.

Other cases included children being scalded in overheated baths, and swallowing deflated balloons.

The number one rule for parents is to watch their children, said Carmen Benton, a parenting educator at Lifeworks Counselling, in Dubai.

"No child under the age of six should ever be left unattended," she said. "Young children need constant supervision – not so much with regards to interfering in their play, but for the reason that no young child should be left in a room alone."

Leaving young children unattended is the main reason behind their resulting injuries, said Dr Fikri Abu-Zidan, the head of trauma at UAE University's medicine department.

"Children at this age have less co-operation," he said. "Their co-ordination is different and they are not aware of the environment around them, so they explore by touching. This is their normal method of gathering knowledge."

Parents should make sure bathtubs are always drained and toilet seats kept closed, added Dr Atrak.

However, the number of young patients with preventable injuries is dropping, he said. "I think we should continue what we are doing and keep it sustainable. We cannot just do one project then move on and do it again in one or two years. It is the responsibility of every single caregiver in society to continue working as a team to make a difference."

zalhassani@thenational.ae

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Ministry plea for parents to provide sweet-free packed lunches

Parents with children at government schools will be urged to follow strict nutritional rules when packing lunches from September, under guidelines being drawn up by the Ministry of Education.

If they include soft drinks, crisps and certain sweets, they will be sent a letter telling them to replace them with fruit and vegetables.

The guidelines are part of a bid to tackle the growing childhood obesity problem and will match new requirements for school canteens.

Schools will also increase the time spent on physical education (PE).

The rules, which have yet to be finalised, replace a patchwork system where each school district writes its own regulations.

"Some will allow a bag of chips and others will not," said Aisha Al Siri, director of the ministry's school health department. "This made it difficult to monitor and regulate students' food intake."

Each district will be monitored by municipal and ministry officials. Last year, the ministry ordered schools to devote more time to PE - from twice a week to three times for primaries, and from once a week to twice for secondaries.

Mohamed Ali Mohamed, senior physical-education supervisor at the ministry, said it wanted to increase the requirement to three times a week across the board, but was stymied by a lack of time and staff.

Schools say more support from parents would help. "Parents who don't want their daughter to practise PE will often get a note excusing her from the class," said Mr Mohamed. "This is wrong. They do not realise the harm this could have on their child's health."

Dr Qazi Ahmed, a practitioner at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, said this was very common. "Parents, especially those of children who have asthma, often come in looking for an excuse certificate," he said. "But we usually don't provide them - we advise them of the activities their children can safely participate in. In the case of asthma, for example, they can participate in almost all sports."

* Manal Ismail

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Empty desks as parents extend Eid for children

Afshan Ahmed

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Afshan Ahmed

DUBAI // Half of the pupils at many public schools were absent yesterday as parents extended the Eid break despite stern warnings from officials and claims by experts that it would harm their children's progress.

There were empty desks in classrooms across the country, even though schools had been ordered by the Ministry of Education to begin classes yesterday.

Samira Al Nuaimi, the vice principal of Mubarak Bin Mohammed School in the capital, said only half of its 700 pupils showed up.

Abdul Kareem, whose son is in Grade 5 at Al Qasimia School in Sharjah, said he did not send his son to school as "it is still Eid".

"The school is open but many parents like me have not sent their children today," he said.

"They will go to school on Sunday," Mr Kareem added. There is no one in school, so I do not think there will be an issue."

He said it would have made more sense for the ministry to give children the week off so families had time to travel.

Ms Al Nuaimi said: "Some parents just decided to add these two days to a long holiday and are now travelling outside the country. We did our best to encourage all parents to send their children to school today by sending SMS and letters."

She said all classes were in session and many activities had been planned for the day.

"Children who have not come today have missed out on the revision and assignments we gave out," Ms Al Nuaimi said.

Ali Mihad Al Suwaidi, the director general of the education ministry, said last week that the authority was tired of the "culture of unnecessary holidays" among parents.

The ministry insisted pupils were to be back in school after the three-day Eid break announced by the Government.

"This may cause some discontent among parents but we want them to understand that pupils need to be in schools studying and they already have enough holiday time during the year," said Mr Al Suwaidi.

The academic year at government schools is about 175 days. Most of the 34 member countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have 195 days on their calendars, giving those students 120 more hours of learning.

Experts say the shorter academic calendar is harming the progress of children.

Awareness sessions with parents about the importance of education helped to ensure good attendance at Ahmed Bin Majid School in Ras Al Khaimah yesterday, said the vice principal Mariam Mohammed Al Zaabi. The private school had only 10 absentees yesterday.

"Only the ones who are sick or out of the country have not returned," Ms Al Zaabi said. "It is important that parents respect the rules laid down and teach the same to their children. They need to like being in school.

"We have several activities and topics we need to teach them and this term is short."

International schools that coupled their mid-term break with the Eid holidays were allowed to take the full week off.

But private schools that had told parents of a week-long Eid holiday without the consent of the ministry were ordered to revoke the announcement.

The Delhi Private School in Sharjah had planned to close for a week, but followed the ministry decision and reopened yesterday.

"We had to follow the rules and parents have co-operated with us," said Vandana Marwaha, the principal. "Only 1 per cent of our pupils - those who had perhaps made travel plans that could not be cancelled - have not turned up."

Ms Marwaha said she was glad the number of holidays had been reduced as it would have been difficult to finish the curriculum this term.

"It is better this way or else our senior school teachers would have to take extra classes on a Saturday to complete the syllabus," she said.

aahmed@thenational.ae

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School fees strike a nerve with perplexed parents

Felicity Glover

Every week, I have this tendency to go on and on about myself in this column. And it gets a little boring, mostly because I'd like to think that I'm not that self-centred.

I'm not really very comfortable talking about myself, especially week in and week out. But when you are writing a personal finance column, it's hard not to let your life or experiences creep into it.

These days, I'm feeling like I'm in the middle of a scene from that 1988 film Beaches, when CC Bloom (played by Bette Midler) says: "But enough about me, let's talk about you ... what do YOU think about me?"

Occasionally - OK, pretty much every week - I struggle to come up with a personal finance topic that's compelling enough to capture readers' attention.

That's not to say there's not a lot going on in the UAE - and there is: from banks gouging us with high fees and charging some of the world's highest interest rates, to enduring the roller-coaster ride of inflation over the past few years, the soaring prices of food and the high cost the global financial crisis has had on many people.

But if there's one topic that I've touched on that has garnered the biggest response, it has to be school fees. Which is why I'm writing about them again.

Since writing my column last week on my experiences with exorbitant school fees, false promises and the lack of quality education at my daughter's former school, I've heard from a lot of parents. Some wanted to know which school my daughter was now attending so they could apply for a place for their own child.

Others had real concerns, such as one parent who is sending their child to a school that has also been long promising a swimming pool. And it isn't the same school that my daughter used to attend.

Another is concerned that the school his daughter attends has applied to the Abu Dhabi Education Council to raise its fees to more than Dh66,000 for the next school year.

If granted, this would mark the second year in a row that this school has raised its fees.

"Most of the parents I've spoken to are leaving the school and are having to go back home," the parent, who doesn't want to be identified, says. "The principal takes the view that we are expats and we can afford it."

Profiteering is one word that some of the parents have used to describe their experiences with high school fees and the lack of quality they receive in return.

What I don't understand is that the education authorities have to approve the fees parents are being charged, as well as any increases the school might want to introduce in the future.

It would be interesting to know what the schools are telling the authorities to get their fee increases granted. What are they promising? And how are they proving that they are providing a good-quality education for the students when they are paying teachers so little?

Judging from the responses I've had from many parents this week, they are just as perplexed as I am.

My education problems might be over, but for two years, I did get the runaround from a school that promised a lot but delivered very little. When I challenged the principal of that school, daring to question the ethics of raising school fees in the middle of the summer holidays on the back of building a swimming pool that had been promised since 2008, he replied that there were special programmes for parents who couldn't afford school fees. Not once did I say in my correspondence with him that I couldn't afford his school's outrageous fees. Was he insulting me or did he just not get it?

This principal also described himself as the chief executive of the school. So the way I saw it, he was responsible for the financials.

He never did answer my question about what percentage of my fees had been going towards that much-promised pool since 2008. Next page

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