The South African Civil Society Information Service

How Do Your Children Get to School?

By Glenn Ashton · 14 Sep 2010

Picture: World Bank Photo Collection

National and provincial authorities have for years attempted to get to grips with scholar transport, yet real solutions remain elusive. Controls have supposedly been imposed on buses and taxis that move this most precious cargo of all, yet our children continue to be exposed to unnecessary daily risks. 

Our society is unequal in so many ways, but perhaps one of the most obvious is the huge gap that exists in how the children of the wealthy and the poor commute to school. 

Anyone passing through our more affluent suburbs knows just how much worse traffic is during term time, compared to the school holidays. Significant numbers of children in these areas travel in private cars, placing additional loads on morning rush hour, again during mid afternoons.

This is in stark contrast to the way in which the majority of scholars travel to school in buses, taxis, trains and on foot. Youngsters are exposed daily to the dangers of bad driving, criminal elements, poor policing, combined with parental and official indifference to their plight. 

These risks are occasionally brought home by the tragic consequences of apathy. The recent tragic death of ten students at a level crossing in Blackheath, Cape Town, by a driver allegedly repeating his daily habit of jumping a level crossing once too often, was a poignant reminder of our collective detachment from taking more active responsibility for this state of affairs.

This tragedy was neither an aberration nor a fluke; it was a consequence of our indifference to daily accidents involving scholars. In the week following this disaster there were two other accidents in Cape Town involving taxis transporting children to school, fortunately with no deaths, but some children were injured. 

In Gauteng there were at least three accidents involving school children. In KwaZulu-Natal a school bus was involved in an accident where children had to be hospitalised. We can assume there were numerous other unreported incidents involving children getting to and from school in small towns and rural areas over the same period.

This snapshot of a single week shows how far we remain from solving this urgent problem. We need to deal collectively with these shortcomings; it is unrealistic and unfair for parents to simply abjure responsibility to the school authorities to arrive at suitable solutions.

Over 70% of children in South Africa walk to school, putting them at high risk of becoming pedestrian victims of motor transport. This alone is a major problem and needs addressing through providing footpaths. Communities must take responsibility for the safety of their children through demanding and participating in creating safer alternatives.

There are four primary means of transport that children use to get to school: train, bus, taxi or private vehicles. A few scholars use bicycles or other personal transport. It is remarkable that, from a cost perspective, it would be far more efficient to provide subsidised bicycles together with safe cycle routes, than it would be to continue to provide subsidised student transport, which caters for a minority of students anyway.

Train transport has two main shortcomings; firstly the lack of security on the trains themselves, as well as around stations and walking routes, and secondly the rundown state of rail commuter services because of poor re-investment in rolling stock and infrastructure. 

Legal action by dedicated groups like the Rail Commuters Action Group has improved security but there remains significant room for improvement. It is equally shortsighted to fail to maintain and improve rail commuter networks if the cycle of decline is to be broken.

Consideration should be given to special student dedicated carriages with co-operative oversight or supervision, either through delegated student monitors or through dedicated railway security systems. Improved train services have been proven to reduce road transport demand. Staggered school hours can also make trains – and other transport modes - safer and less crowded than at peak times.

Most students reliant on public transport use taxis and buses. While both national and provincial governments have tightened legislation around transporting scholars, legislative intent has not achieved the desired outcomes. When we read reports in local newspapers of traffic police finding 115 and 85 children crammed into taxis, problems clearly remain.

Many school districts, particularly rural ones, contract in bus services. This has led to serious cost overruns and profound problems around how these services are run and funded, with nepotism, corruption and questionable tenders in all parts of the country. In Mpumalanga the cost of this system rose from R10 million in 2002 to R268 million in 2008, while service levels declined. 

Children in the Western Cape’s Matzikamma coastal district have experienced great difficulties in getting to school in Vredendal. Parents there have become increasingly concerned after finding their primary school children hitch-hiking long distances to school after the contracted bus services have not turned up. Although provincial authorities have promised an improved service, monitored by school principals, the system clearly remains dysfunctional.

Exacerbating matters, a study undertaken by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town has shown that distances children travel to schools have increased for both primary and high school students between 2002 and 2008, increasing transport burdens and risks to students. The sharpest increase has been in Gauteng, as children seek better schools than those available locally.

Besides regular municipal bus services, which should be properly accredited and maintained, contracted scholar bus services must be subjected to extremely strict management criteria. Many buses transporting children are old and prone to break downs, particularly in rural areas with poor traffic policing. 

It is also crucial that it is not just school authorities but also parents who assume greater responsibility for their children and their transport to school. Parents in poor communities must collectively demand their democratic right that local education and transport boards transparently fulfil their responsibilities. 

All vehicles transporting students should be readily identifiable by bold numbering on all sides. In the USA school buses are painted in bold bright yellow and black livery, making them instantly recognisable to anyone else on the road. Road users there are forbidden to pass school buses when students are alighting or exiting. Flashing lights with booms extend from some buses when stopped, enabling children to safely cross roads, especially important in respect to our inordinately high pedestrian death toll.

There is no reason we cannot begin to implement such systems locally. Taxis and other private transport contracted to transport scholars must not only be fully accredited but identifiable and traceable at all times.

Parents cannot forgo responsibility when children walk out the door; this is not only the responsibly of headmasters or teachers. How our children get to and from school must become a shared, delegated responsibility for all parties, including the children themselves. Students must be sufficiently empowered and informed to feel able to report dangerous, threatening or illegal behaviour to parents and teachers. Reporting systems must have mechanisms to implement and follow up infractions. 

Finally, those transporting our children must not only become properly accredited, identifiable and responsible but proper sanctions and enforcement mechanisms must exist. For instance stipulations for fines and suspension of licences for designated drivers must be far stricter for those transporting children than for other sectors of the transport industry. We take great care in transporting cash and other valuable goods, while neglecting the most valuable goods of all. 

There are inherent dangers in our children’s daily commute, which have been promised to be addressed for years. Recent tragedies have shown just how dysfunctional the system remains. When children arrive at school, crammed into the back of overloaded bakkies or taxis, then mechanisms must be put in place to take immediate action – we cannot wait for needless tragedies to spur us to action. Our children are our future and it is high time that we began to treat them accordingly, rich and poor alike.

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