Port Elizabeth - Issues pertaining to scholar transport in the Eastern Cape will come under the spotlight with Department of Transport MEC, Weziwe Tikana expected to host a consultation session in Mthatha on Thursday.
The consultation session is aimed at affording relevant stakeholders an opportunity to give input to the draft revised Scholar Transport Policy.
According to the department, the draft policy takes into account lessons learnt and emerging issues in the implementation of the scholar transport programme.
Parents of the children as well as transport operators tasked with ferrying the children safely and on time to and from school have been invited to participate.
Tikana urged stakeholders to present suggestions which could improve the scholar transport programme moving forward.
“This session can and should not be another talk-shop, we intend for it to play a meaningful role in improving the service and ensure that our children are ferried to and from school on time and most importantly, safely. We look forward to their valuable input at this session,” said Tikana.
Tikana said the engagement with service providers comes ahead of the expiry of the current contracts at the end of the year. The department is currently making plans for the new tender which will be implemented in January 2020.
Some of the policy issues to be discussed have to do with provisions for when there are rationalised schools which impact on some of the routes as well as issues that relate to the death of a contracted operator.