Not enough money to keep kids safe

The provincial government has said that children should not be transported to school on bakkies because of the risk. This picture is from a January report in the Daily News of an accident that killed eight pupils when the bakkie they were being taken home in crashed into a house in Pietermaritzburg. However, the cost of safe school transport is too high for provincial coffers.

The provincial government has said that children should not be transported to school on bakkies because of the risk. This picture is from a January report in the Daily News of an accident that killed eight pupils when the bakkie they were being taken home in crashed into a house in Pietermaritzburg. However, the cost of safe school transport is too high for provincial coffers.

Published May 4, 2015

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Durban - Only a fraction of what is needed to get children off bakkies has been allocated to school transport in the provincial transport budget, and the high risk school transport situation is unlikely to change for most pupils.

For the next financial year, R185.9 million has been allocated for transporting 21 760 pupils at 226 rural schools.

Tabling the R9.3 billion department budget last Thursday, Transport MEC Willies Mchunu said the department needed R5bn to move children off bakkies.

Sadtu provincial secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, and the chair of the KZN Parent’s Association, Vee Gani, both said the most desperate areas needed to be prioritised.

Caluza said a meeting between the department and education stakeholders was needed to find workable solutions to the shortfalls.

There was money in the government, but the problem was that it was not being spent properly, Gani said.

Caluza said the criteria used to identify eligible pupils for school transport and payment to service providers left much to be desired with some paid before they rendered services.

Sherylle Dass, of the Equal Education Law Centre, said the government needed to make adequate allocation and come up with proper policy on the criteria for those eligible for the subsidised service.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

The emphasis on pupil transport has had the provincial government between a rock and a hard place as it grapples with how to protect children after several fatal accidents involving children on bakkies.

In January, eight Pietermaritzburg children died after the bakkie transporting them crashed into a house on the trip home from school. A year ago, five children died when their school bakkie plunged into a dam near Mooi River.

During the budget debate on Thursday, transport portfolio committee chairman, Mxolisi Kaunda, called for more pupil transport funding.

“The provincial treasury and finance committee should consider additional funding for learner transport to cover a number of schools in our province,” Kaunda said.

The DA’s Rafeek Shah agreed that pupil transport was “grossly underfunded”.

“The demand for pupil transport far outweighs the supply, but there are other priorities like road repairs and trying to connect rural areas to the road network,” Shah said.

MORE FUNDING NEEDED

Transport Department spokesman, Kwanele Ncalane, confirmed that the department was engaging with the provincial and national treasury in an attempt to get more funding.

In his budget speech, Mchunu said policy was being formulated to regulate the use of bakkies to transport pupils.

“I wish to reiterate the call to parents to ensure that their children travel in safe modes of transport,” he said.

Mchunu said the cabinet had ordered his department and its counterparts in education and economic development to address the use of bakkies due to socio-economic conditions.

“In our collective process, we have interacted with the KwaZulu-Natal scholar transport operators who have now joined the SA National Taxi Council,” he said.

Ncalane said the department acknowledged that bakkies were not meant to transport paying passengers.

The plan was to phase out bakkies, but meanwhile to integrate pupil transport operators into the council so that they could acquire suitable vehicles, he said.

About R6.8 billion of the Transport Department’s R9.3 billion budget would go towards the transport infrastructure programme.

Daily News

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