School’s SMS policy saves child’s life

A near tragedy was averted on Tuesday when teachers at the International Indian School in Dammam (IISD) informed parents of a first grader that their child had not reported to school.
Mohammed Abdul Muqtader, 42, and his wife, Rizwana Begum, were in shock and in tears when they received a text message from the school stating that their child was absent for the day.
“When I got the SMS from the school at 9:30 a.m., I panicked because I had myself put my 6-year-old son, Abdul Muqeet, on the school bus at around 6:30 a.m.,” said Muqtader. “Since I was at work, I immediately called my wife at our home in Subeikha in Alkhobar to check if our son had returned home for any reason.”
He had not.
Yet a text messaging service from school officials to notify parents of absent children probably saved Abdul’s life. The SMS policy was implemented following the death of a kindergartner, who suffocated in an empty school bus in 2010.
Muqtader, who works as a senior designer at Saudi Consulting Service, rang the school to tell them that his son had indeed left for school. “The guy at the central desk gave me the class teacher’s cell number and asked me to call her directly, which I did,” he said. “She was very helpful and told me politely that my son was marked absent for the day. At the same time, she promised to check with the men in charge of the school buses.”
The men at the school’s transport department knew what had happened. They rushed to the bus which was parked at a little distance from the school building in Al-Raka district and found little Muqeet sitting in his seat, confused, worried and rattled. He had dozed off and nobody bothered to take him off in the morning.
“By the time I reached the school, I got a call from the class teacher informing me that they had found my son, hale and hearty,” said Muqtader. “I was relieved but upset that my son was locked up in that huge SAPTCO bus with little oxygen for nearly three hours.”
Muqtader’s thoughts immediately turned to the tragedy that occurred in June 2010 when a kindergartner, Fida Haris, suffocated after she was mistakenly left inside a private school van under the hot summer sun. Stark memories of that tragedy are singed in the collective conscience of the Indian community in the Eastern Province.
“Thankfully, this was winter time; what if it were summer?” wondered Muqtader. “A great tragedy has been averted and we thank Allah for this blessing.”
Since the 2010 incident, the school has taken a number of measures to protect the kindergartners and first graders. Among the first policy decisions that IISD Chairman Thiru K.M. and the elected managing committee took when they assumed the charge last year was the introduction of the text-message system. Parents of children in the primary section are informed every morning via a simple text message about their ward’s absence.
“This system has resulted in the avoidance of the kind of tragedy that we witnessed in 2010,” said Thiru. “Having said that let me state quite categorically that this is a serious lapse on the part of those who have been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that all children are taken off the school bus.”
With 16,000 students and more than 850 teachers, the 30-year-old Dammam school is one of the largest in the region, and despite best efforts of the school authorities, its transport system has always been chaotic and disastrous.