The Jeddah Education Department has promised to fix failures in its school safety program in the wake of the devastating fire at the Bara'em Al-Watan Private Girls' School which claimed three lives and injured dozens of teachers and students. Abdullah Al-Thaqafi, the department's Director of Education, said a project has been launched to determine the problems and shortcomings in the city's school safety program. “The project will be completed soon and a detailed report with notes will be produced so that the department can prevent similar fire accidents from happening again,” said Al-Thaqafi. The department also recently held a meeting with a delegation of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) to discuss the fire. At the meeting the NSHR called on the department to train male and female teachers to deal with fires. The NSHR delegation said that the department did not provide teachers with any such training. The NSHR also raised concerns about the bars on the windows of girls' schools, the lack of emergency exits on top floors and the absence of regular fire and evacuation drills for students and teachers. The NSHR said it is waiting for the final results of the fire investigation before compiling its own report of conclusions and recommendations. __
