“Lebanon Debate”
A study issued by the Lebanese International Traffic Safety Academy (LIRSA) revealed that 85 children die annually in Lebanon while going to or returning from school (during the entire trip, regardless of the means of transportation, whether on foot, on a bus, on a bicycle, etc.). .
In this context, the head of the Lebanese Observatory for Traffic Safety, Michel Mutran, asks: What are the concerned Lebanese state administrations doing to avoid this disaster in the 2023/2024 academic year?
He explains that the departments concerned here are the Ministry of Education agencies that have the duty to monitor private and public schools and ensure the implementation of Law No. 551/1996, which stipulates, for example, the appointment of a monitor inside every school bus, or Implementing Decree No. 4018/2010, which specifies the duties of the monitor if he is appointed. And also the Internal Security Forces, which, in the event of neglecting to appoint a monitor in each means of transportation by the concerned authority, must write a seizure report with a fine ranging between 9 million and 18 million liras.
If the law assigns the responsibility of proving that a monitor was not appointed to the means of transportation to the Internal Security Forces, will they monitor? He also stressed that the municipal police exercise all the powers of the internal security forces in this context, and indeed they must do so.
Mutran poses obvious questions to the administrations of private schools, whose tuition fees range between $1,500 and $10,000 per student per year:
What prevents these departments from enforcing the law and appointing bus monitors?
What prevents it from appointing an usher or guard at the entrance to every school to ensure that buses that do not belong to it even adhere to the safety principles mentioned in the law, under penalty of being prohibited from transporting students?
What prevents it from organizing its surroundings, including sidewalks, entrances, exits, and corridors, in order to ensure the safety of children and students?
To answer the questions, nothing prevents them except ignorance or unwillingness to allocate budgets for this.
He addresses the parents who pay premiums for educational services, to demand that the school has the right of their children to be safe, just as they demand of it the right of their children to receive annual recreational trips, and just as they demand of it the right of their children to have the best education.
He reminds school administrations that they will be criminally and financially responsible if they are negligent and can be sued before the courts for negligence and negligence, and there are legal precedents that have proven school administrations’ responsibility for this.
It is announced that the Lebanese Observatory for Traffic Safety at Justicia has prepared the necessary legal study to sue any school that fails to adhere to the applicable laws in achieving traffic safety if the parents so desire, and the “Lebanon Debate” website will be a platform for follow-up in the framework of a partnership with the Observatory.
2023-10-02 12:41:31
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