UAE: Emirates Schools Establishment updates Covid violations list for public school students

Abu Dhabi - With regard to pupils learning remotely, authorities listed the following violations.

The Emirates Schools Establishment (ESE) has issued an updated list of violations to ensure students abide by the rules and regulations as they attend physical or remote learning during the current academic year, which began on August 29.

In a circular distributed to all public schools in the country, the authorities identified four degrees or grades of pupils’ violations, including minor, medium-risk, serious and very serious and the ways school administrations can deal with those violating the regulations.

Regarding students attending physical learning at school, the minor or first-degree violations involve failure to wear school or sports uniform, sleeping or non-compliance in the classroom, repeatedly being late for the morning assembly or not attending at all, leaving the school during class time without permission, eating food and chewing gum in class or during the morning assembly and not bringing books and other material or leaving them at school.

The second-degree or medium-risk violations, include absence from school after vacations, smoking inside the campus, writing on walls, furniture and on the bus, not following the prescribed behavioural and guiding systems and instructions for using facilities, uttering, pointing and waving in an inappropriate manner to colleagues, as well as deliberately abusing others and the staff through social media and escaping during the school hours.

The third degree or serious violations, include deliberate damaging or sabotaging of school equipment, tools and attachments or buses, absenteeism without an acceptable excuse before and after breaks, weekends and long holidays, and bringing and misusing a mobile phone inside school and during classes. It also includes stealing or covering it up, sexual harassment, insulting religions, photographing, possessing, publishing and circulating pictures of school workers and learners without their permission with the intent to offend them.

And the fourth degree or very serious violations include impersonating a student in school transactions or falsifying official documents, possession and bringing in sharp tools or dangerous materials of all kinds, causing fires inside the campus, leaking exam questions or being involved with it, solicitation and promotion of drug use and sexual assault.

Violations related to remote learning

With regard to pupils learning remotely, authorities listed the following violations:

The first-degree or minor violations include being 10 minutes late while attending an online class without a genuine excuse, wearing clothes that violate public taste and morals, side conversations or non-academic talks and obstructing the lessons, mocking the teacher or a colleague during the lesson and eating while attending an online class. Adding any unauthorised program, misuse of the microphone or camera and chatting without prior permission from the teacher and misuse of the powers available through Microsoft Teams is also prohibited.

The medium-risk violations during remote learning include student’s absence from class for a full day without an acceptable excuse, inciting students not to attend remote learning classes or threatening and intimidating them, not attending lessons on remote learning platforms and engaging in quarrels with students whether visual or written during class sessions on distance learning platforms, failure to respond to the rules regulating the conduct of lessons, misuse of computers during or after distance learning and making audio or video communication for non-educational purposes with the rest of the students after the normal classes whether class mates or those attending other schools.

Remote learning violations also involve using e-mail or social media to disclose personal information, removing the teacher or students from the learning group that may disrupt the lesson, using profanity, racist or other terms that may be offensive to any other user and abusing or insulting the official visitors during the virtual classes.

ismail@khaleejtimes.com

• Abu Dhabi