ADEC Bans Under 12s School Travel

ADEC announced recently, that as of the 24th February 2016 all private school students under the age of 12 will not be permitted to travel outside of Abu Dhabi while on school excursions.

Talking to the National, an unnamed school administrator said, "they’ve put a moratorium on us being able to get approval on any extracurricular activities."

“Anything new that’s coming in that we want our students to take part in, then we need ADEC approval, we can’t put in, which means we can’t get approval for any extracurricular activities for our third term right now,” he continued.

The council began adapting legislation back in January 2015, when ADEC requested schools complete comprehensive documentation two weeks prior to any planned trips within Abu Dhabi.

For trips outside of the area, the procedure was expected to take approximately 2 months and required students via the school to submit ID cards and passport copies, plus risk analysis documentation and letters of no objection.

The administrator went on to say, ADEC then, "“started requiring even more materials and that has slowed down the process significantly” meaning schools were “overwhelmed with the number of requests for approvals that they’re getting”.

Patrick Horne, principal at BISAD said, "school trips are a very important part of school life and offer wonderful learning experiences which cannot normally be provided through a regular school day. Our school continues to support ADEC and work closely with them to help develop procedures to ensure students can gain the benefit of these kind of trips.”