Stop the school transport carnage
Our children must be taken safely to and from learning centres, writes
ONCE more we are engulfed by shock and grief. We have just witnessed more road carnage that swallowed 18 pupils in a single vehicle crash in Mpumalanga last Friday.
Families in Verena township are distraught as they mourn their children. They will never see them run errands around the houses again, never hear them sing while playing, and never hear them bid their goodbyes as they set off for school.
Such was the violence and suddenness of the fiery curtain that brought about their silence, such the loss and tragedy, that the affected communities will never stop thinking about the nightmare this incident has caused these families, who have had hopes dashed in the unrelenting inferno.
But once more, the issues of social justice come to the fore – for schooling combined with danger is associated with the indigent who struggle for a better life. These children had to be transported daily to another place, in fact, another province, to get education.
It is difficult not to remember the gaps that exist in schooling between the poor and the affluent today.
That schism is always accentuated when incidents like this happen.
Poor families are always in search of education in schools that are not necessarily in their vicinities. In search of better schools, their children may be bused from their area of abode to schools that are kilometres away, and danger in various forms may lurk en route to school.
In fact, public buses are a much better form of transport, safer although not always reliable. Yet, there are many pupils who are not so lucky, who use taxis which are much faster but not always safe.
Moving around the urban areas, one can see overcrowded taxis, packed with schoolchildren, whose din sometimes cuts through the eardrums of passers-by, creating earth tremors.
This usually leaves the curious public wondering how the pupils manage inside the pandemonium of wild violent sounds.
These 15-seaters continue to be a health hazard as some have been caught with 30 children inside, packed like sardines in vehicles that are sometimes not even roadworthy.
And then there are those who travel in organised bakkies that some have labelled “coffins in locomotion”.
These too are usually organised by parents, who are ironically seeking to ensure that their children arrive at school safely.
These are parental measures to ensure that nothing dangerous happens on the road to and from school. But how many have perished at the back of these bakkies that are also sometimes overloaded because the drivers want to make a quick buck?
Frequently, parents never question this ominous overloading until something bad happens; all they want to see is that every day the children get to school.
There were heated debates a few years ago when some provincial governments sought to ban the use of bakkies that ferry children to school. It was clear then that the communities were questioning the safety of the children. This happened after a bakkie overturned carrying pupils.
But, sadly, the debates ceased after a certain time. As usually happens, the people laid the matter to rest and the debate waits for another disaster.
When the Mpumalanga taxi overturned and burnt all those inside, some of us thought of the challenges in our education system.
All children need to to be able to walk to school without any need of travelling for hours before they get their daily education.
As a society, we need to ensure there are no schools with substandard education, thus making parents perpetually search for quality in distant schools.
All schools should have effective human as well as material resources.
There should be no necessity for children to cross treacherous rivulets on their way to school. Again, we have heard of and witnessed children who have perished crossing rivers to schools. The journey and struggle for effective education should not be perilous.
Unfortunately again, it is the poor children who have to struggle through the demanding and uncertain futures.
In fact, there are several circumstances that lead to misery when it comes to schooling of the poor. In the past few years so many things have been happening to young people, demonstrating that schools are not the safe havens they are supposed to be.
One remembers how a young boy, Michael Komape, died in a pit latrine in Limpopo on his first day at school.
Another lad died after allegedly being punished by the principal late last year, having been accused of stealing R150.
In most of these cases, the indigent child may not see education as a redeemer from poverty, but rather as something where inside the school premises danger lurks, as well as on the way between home and school.
We know that for poor children schools can be a health hazard; without running water and using the bucket system, pupils are bound to encounter health challenges.
So much has been changed by our government and we should always applaud this, but we need to continually try to improve the conditions of schooling for all the country’s children.
We should also start thinking about effective scholar transport that would be reliable and safe for all pupils.
Children’s safety should come first and we do not want any more calamities. In 2015, the then-minister of transport highlighted that there was a need to address the challenges of accessibility and safety of pupils, hence the national Learner Transport Policy was developed in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education.
This policy should come to fruition for all children so that we realise the dream of a uniform approach to the transportation of pupils, fulfilling the mandate of the department that champions a safe transport system.
It is a disservice and social injustice for the poor to suffer in their involvement in education, which is supposed to be more emancipatory and bring pedagogy that carries reassurance and upliftment.
There are many siblings who will never forget how their close relatives perished coming from school in a taxi and this will make them cringe each time they go to school. Sadly the current circumstances may communicate confusing messages to many families; giving them an everyday message that education may simply not be the leveller in society.
What can we do but hope that the ashes of the small heroines and heroes will not be in vain? One hopes that their haunting wails will bring forth sensible debates that will bring pragmatic projection into the future.
We do not want parents to sob endlessly saying had their child not been attending school, they would still be alive. All parents should send their children to school without fear and ideally schools should come to families.
Quality education should be brought to all areas including lonely hamlets and distant rural villages.
That is one aspect of an ideal of a socially just education.
Professor Msila is a director at Unisa’s Change Management Unit. He writes in his personal capacity.