Traffic Awareness campaign

“Traffic Awareness” is a campaign, which is organized by the department of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics students at Qatar University. The aim of the campaign is to increase awareness among students about the reasons that cause the traffic accident. For examples, the behavior of the drivers when they drive on a road, like using their phone or eating food during driving. Consequently, this campaign also aims to identify that the increasing of speed also increases the total of injures. This campaign comes in the context of the message that the department of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics wants to spread that the percentage of the deaths caused by car accident between 4 to 5 deaths per week.

This campaign was the best practical application of what students are studying in the department of Mathematics and Statistics. The Traffic Awareness was a teaching lesson for students to learn how to transfer their studying in statistic to a real life.

This campaign was varied between pictures and videos to show how the speed kill a lot of people, also with instructors from the department who talked about how many people died around the world from traffic accident. In addition they bring statistic about that Qatar has the highest rate of deaths in the world.

The problem is that this was a weak campaign because no one knew about it. The announcing to the campaign was low. Only few students attended to, also they did not bring special people to take about the Traffic Awareness.

My suggestion is to promote similar campaigns; however, a good marketing is required in order to attract a good number of students to attend and to bring specialists to awareness student about the danger of speed.

The change from English to Arabic in the independent schools

The Supreme Education Council has announced that independent school must introduce Arabic as the main language in the education system.

The independent school has change there language from teaching the entire subject in English to the Arabic language. How that affected the students?

After teaching English language for almost 6 to 7 years now they suddenly change every thing to Arabic language this will affects the students in the future. The students struggled   in the process of learning English language consequently, they now must adapt to Arabic language again. However some student started from grade 1 to learn their subjects in English, then when they become in grade 9 for example, they have to study their math’s and sciences in Arabic, this will affect their grades and their understanding of the subjects.

I asked some students studying in independent schools about their opinions regarding the sudden changes in education language system, they said: ”this is a wrong   decision because we know that Arabic language is important to learn and this is our mother language but what about our future in the universities? What about if we want to study outside the country it will limit our choices?

Some students started translating the sciences from Arabic to English in order to understand.

I did a study about the satisfaction of the transfer from English to Arabic, where 70% of the students agreed that they should study math

and science and other subject in English.

Nowadays English language is one of the most important languages worldwide. So wherever a person goes, he/she must be able to speak English in order to communicate and interact with others. If a person wants to apply for a job he must know English very well and some times its required from him to be fluent in English more than Arabic.

It is important for the student to learn Arabic language because it is their mother language, but the most important thing is to study the language that they will use in their future life.

The movements from decision to another like studying first in English then to transfer to Arabic this will confuse the students.

Security challenging in the education environment

One of the most important requirements for The American School of Doha is to ensure safe and secure learning environment including the school camps, accordingly, American School of Doha (ASD) has started on August 2011 to force the parents to show and to wear their identity card whenever, they come to the camps.

Consequently, all parents, families and household must show their ID cards to the security guard at the school gate, when they come to pick up their children from the school.

 

While this has enhanced the security, it has caused some other problems such as the waiting queue at the school gate, as, the parents when they come to pick up their children they wait for some time until the security guard check their ID card so they can enter the gate. “Personal example”

Thus, the place is crowded with many parents waiting for their turn to enter the school. Accordingly, the parents should bring their ID cards; otherwise, they have to wait, in order to write down their names and their signature.

Moreover, the parents should park their cars, although, there were no enough parking lots, and then the parents have to enter the gate to pick up their children; their time will be wasted. 

My suggestion is to provide parking lots inside not outside the gates of the school. Parents should be provided with car passes on the gates, the school should have a security system that does not allow a car to enter without its pass.

The most expensive schools in Doha

The American School of Doha (ASD) is one of the most expensive schools in Doha. Despite the fact that the school has an excellent curriculum, the teachers are skilled, and the facilities are very good, the tuition and the fees for the school is very expensive compared to other schools in Doha. To illustrate, the application fee in the American school of Doha is 500QR for non- refundable, whereas, Doha College application fee is 200QR. Consequently, ASD is ranked as one of the most expensive schools in Doha. According to a web site that analyses the annual fees of all private schools in Doha, the fees of the American School of Doha are 32,368 QR for Pre- to KG, 53,976 QR for grades 1 to grade 5, and 70,194 QR for grade 6 to grade 12. Compared to other school in Qatar, for example, in ACS Doha International School the annual tuition fees for 2012-2013 is 40,000 QR for Pre-K, 50,000 QR for KG, 55,000 QR for Grades 1-5, 63,000 QR for Grades 6 to grade 8,and 63,000 QR for Grades 9. Also, in Al Jazeera School the annual tuition fees are 20,125 QR for Preschool, 26,450 for grade 1-6, 33,062 for grade 7-9, 39,675 for grade 10-11, and 42,320 for grade 12.

In addition, the fee for buses is expensive too. The Annual transportation fees is QR 6,950 per child, so if the family has more than one child in the same school, they have to pay the double to the transportation fees. From my experience as a mother of four, it’s very difficult to have them all in the transportation system of the school since per person it is around 7,000 QR.

My suggestion for the school is to lower their fees, so the students can have good quality of education and the parents can pay for that.