Note to Editors: Please find below an extract from a speech delivered by CJ Steyl MPL during a sitting of the North West Provincial legislature today.
Honourable Speaker,
North West children are being denied their basic right to access quality education due to a poorly implemented scholar transport function.
Occasionally, we read media reports how school children are put at risk by an ineffective and unsafe scholar transport system.
Last year, on 5 September 2024, four learners were injured when a bus tyre burst near Vryburg.
In July 2024, we heard of three learners in Mahikeng, who, fearing for their lives, jumped out of the bus a short distance from the school because the driver was driving recklessly and was allegedly drunk.
Sadly, one learner died from injuries sustained.
In February 2024, 51 learners were injured and 21 hospitalised after the steering wheel of a bus came off.
The driver then jumped off the bus, leaving the learners in an unattended moving vehicle.
The list of tragic incidents like these is long.
By the Department of Transport Management’s own admission, there are problems with the appointment of contractors, coupled with ineffective monitoring, abandoned routes and even disputed billing.
There is also no answer from the Department of Transport Management how the current scholar transport contracts were awarded for a 5-year period despite the PFMA allowing only for three-year contracts.
From the companies appointed to transport school children include companies that operate as general dealers, construction companies, air-conditioning companies, trading companies and even one company called Syndicate.
And that, Honourable Speaker, sums it up nicely.
A syndicate!
Just like we have a construction mafia, a water tanker mafia, we now also have a scholar transport mafia that abuse government’s inefficiencies to loot the fiscus, placing lives and livelihoods in danger.
The Department of Education identified that there are 59 261 school children in need of transport, but the Department of Transport Management is only able to service 50 216 children a day.
That leaves more than 9 000 school children outside of the system.
Small wonder the school drop-out rate is so high. Maybe if government can get children to school safely, on time, every day, the retention rate would improve.
Currently, scholar transport is funded through the equitable share.
And as we all know, the fiscal pressure on government leads to competing funding priorities. Sometimes government cut funding where it really should not.
Scholar transport should be funded through a conditional grant so that every learner who needs safe transport to school, receives it.
It is our submission that MEC Viola Motsumi, should work with Minister Siviwe Gwarube and the National Department of Education, along with Provincial and National Treasury, in support of comprehensive national scholar transport policy funded by conditional grants to ensure that every learner that needs safe and reliable transport, receives it.
Scholar transport is an important function directly linked to education outcomes – that is improving school retention and ultimately the matric pass rates.
It is important that the education outcome value chain is managed by the Department of Education.
Transport Management should focus on improving and integrating public transport networks while also ensuring traffic law compliance and road worthiness of vehicles.
It is our position that the Department of Education, through its school district structures, down to the school level, would be better placed to effectively manage and monitor scholar transport.
Who better to knows the challenges of learners than a school principal?
Let us break down the silos that prevent putting the child first in education.
What we are asking for is not anything new. Scholar transport in managed by the Departments of Education in the Western Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, Gauteng and Limpopo.