Dubai Police To Patrol All Schools
Schools in Dubai will have new police patrols specialising in securing traffic around schools and to raise safety awareness among students, staff and bus drivers.
Dubai Police announced that the new initiative “Schools Security” is part of the force’s plan to secure roads around schools leading to enhanced safety for students.
According to a report in Gulf News, Dubai Police wants to establish a friendlier relationship between children and policemen, as the latter are usually portrayed as figures that need to be feared by children.
Major General Abdullah Khalifa Al Merri, commander-in-chief of Dubai Police, said there will be three police patrols with the initiative’s logo to patrol school areas for now and by the end of the year, the number of patrols will increase.
“We want to create a new channel between schools and police. We will have an officer assigned to each school to guide the pupils, the school’s staff and parents and to communicate with them on their problems. We want [schools] to know what to do in case of a problem and how to avoid getting into trouble.”
He added that all the 13 police stations in Dubai will have a specialised patrol with assistance also from the normal police patrols, and after three months, the results will be analysed to develop the initiative.
All government and private schools in Dubai will be part of this initiative.
Brigadier Yousuf Al Adidi, director of Al Qusais police station, said they have three school patrols in Bur Dubai, Deira and Hatta.
“Each school will have a policeman attending the morning meeting with pupils and deliver lectures on how to combat bullying, bad friends and harassment. We want our pupils to know when to say no to strangers.”
He said that another important aspect that will be dealt with by the police is the issue of smartphone usage among children.
“We will educate them on how to use it [properly] to avoid troubles on the internet and social media platforms.”
The initiative will cover 262 government schools and 191 private schools in Dubai and about 600,000 students and 39,000 school staff.
Photo courtesy: Dubai Police website
