‘Moving coffin’ scholar transport boycotted in Nkandla

Outraged parents in Nkandla, near Joe Slovo in Port Elizabeth, yesterday stopped their children boarding their school bus for the second day this week.

Transport is needed for 110 pupils from Grade R to Grade 7 to Spencer Mabija Combined School in KwaMagxaki. Ntando Tours & Transport provides the buses.

“We decided to inspect this bus because yesterday, one had broken seats,” said parent Phumla Sibaca, who has three children at the school.

“This one was even worse. It has a huge hole that our children can fall into. The children push one another in that bus when they board and it is overcrowded. We decided not to allow our children near that moving coffin.”

Another parent, Nowhi Nyendwana, also a mother of three, said: “Anything can happen in that bus because it is overloaded and too hot. Most of these children are five years old and they can easily collapse.

“They solely depend on this bus. It takes 110 children here in Nkandla, 10 in Nyamazana and seven in the Joe Slovo areas. In total it carries 127 pupils every day.”

The bus is certified to transport 65 people seated and 15 standing. But parents say that since 2014, it has carried over 100 pupils at a time. Yesterday, they yelled at the bus driver: “Go to hell with this skorokoro bus.”

“We have been calling for a second bus or our own school to be built, because Joe Slovo Primary School is already full and overcrowded,” said Nyendwana.

“Last year, we even went to the district offices in Uitenhage where we were asked to gather a number of our children from the schools they attend. But some of the schools refused to give us that information for fear their numbers will drop if we have our own school.”

Sibaca said that on Monday, the driver had said he could only take 65 children.

“We demanded the driver show us a list of the children who were approved to be on the bus. But he failed to do that … Since scholar transport was introduced here in 2014, we have never used a list.”

“We then decided to go to our ward councillor’s house and asked him to intervene.”

Ward councillor Simphiwe Tyukana said: “Since 2009, I have been asking the Eastern Cape department of education, and late MEC Mandla Makupula, to build a new primary school because we have lost not less than 10 pupils crossing R75 Uitenhage Road.

“He promised to build a primary school for us … Now we have a crisis.”

Provincial education spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani said new infrastructure projects would only be considered in 2023-24. Provincial transport spokesperson Unathi Binqose said they would follow up on reports that a bus was turned away.”

Republished from GroundUp