The Fiji Sun’s ‘After-School Student Safety patrol network’

Before a fatal disaster happens

The Fiji Bus Operators Association general secretary, Rohit Latchan, said it. The ongoing issue of dealing with unruly students in buses in major school competitions needs a collective effort from all stakeholders.

The association itself cannot do it alone. Neither is the new.

Every year the hype builds up from participating schools in sporting competitions such as the Coke Games and the Deans.

It escalates to school students acting in an unruly manner in public transports risking their lives, other passengers, pedestrians and motorists. Considering this, the association has called on bus drivers to be vigilant and remove passengers who are acting up.

Mr Latchan said: “…it must involve students, their parents and guardians, school authorities, the Ministry of Education and bus companies.”

Over the past few days, Fiji Sun has highlighted the need for a holistic approach on this matter.

But it seems that stakeholders are passing the buck in their comments.

This week we reported how a student died because he allegedly got off a moving bus.

While this tragic news may not be related to the sporting hype out there, we can draw lessons from it nonetheless.

Building on from the association’s call, Fiji Sun has come up with a few suggestions that authorities and stakeholders may have to enforce immediately lest we witness another catastrophic incident.

We’ll call it the ‘After-School Student Safety Patrol Network’ and the suggestions are below:

The Ministry of Education, school heads, Police, FBOA, the Parent & Guardians Association and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to hold a meeting to coordinate an after-school patrol for students,

Bus to bus policy for students to be introduced. This should be stressed in school assemblies,

Any students/schools found behaving in an unruly manner to face a disciplinary committee,

Police to beef up presence in after-school studentpopulated areas such as the bus stands,

Police should have one or two officers present in school buses to keep the peace,

The Land Transport Authority to hold awareness programmes during school assembly on safety on our roads as well as highlight the traffic infringement notices for any breach,

Parents & Guardians Association to alert the parents on different communicating platforms on the same.

Must we be reactive and wait for a disaster to happen to enforce some hard-core measures?

If we, as a community, look out for each other by being proactive, we can save a life and our children can hope to see another day.