More than 8,000 pupils in the North West still endure punishing daily long walks of up to 20km to school due to shambles in the scholar transport programme in the largely rural and impoverished province.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) held an investigative inquiry
into the state of scholar transport in the province this week, where the challenges were laid bare by government officials and other stakeholders.
MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, Wessels Morweng, informed the chapter nine institution during the hearings in Mahikeng that the department needed an
additional R79-million to accommodate pupils who are not receiving the service.
Morweng said the department budgeted R450-million for the programme in the current
fiscal year, but it was insufficient, and that he has approached the Treasury to increase the budget for scholar transport.
“One of the biggest problems is that we begin every fiscal year with accruals as we experience budget cuts,” he said.
Morweng said the funds would also cover the routes that were not covered in the previous financial year.
The SAHRC learnt that North West pays scholar transport service providers double the amount compared to other provinces.
The province has struggled with handling scholar transport for years, and discussions within the provincial legislature suggested that the programme should be relocated back to the provincial department of education.
The inquiry also heard submissions on labour-related violations, the discontinuation of the scholar transport programme in certain areas, overloading, mechanical failures of buses, a lack of vetting of drivers and backup transport and monitoring, plus late payments of service providers.
Price Masilo, acting head of the department of education, told the inquiry that the rationalisation and merging of small and non-viable rural schools had an impact on a large number of pupils using scholar transport.
The commission learnt that the subject was in turn drastically increased on scholar transport as pupils who used to walk to the nearby schools had to be ferried to merged schools.
“Rationalism was to consolidate the schools that have a similar curriculum. If now that is viewed as a matter of increasing the budget, I won’t be able to respond now because the issue of the budget is of Cosatma [the department of community safety and transport management], ours is the need,” he responded to the commission.
“You said that probably we would have done that, not thinking of other challenges, but the rationale is the same; it is not our aim to inflate the budget, which might not be necessarily ours. Ours is to get service by Cosatma,” Masilo said.
In the last two years, some service providers were involved in accidents, two of which claimed the lives of two pupils, the commission was told.
SAHRC commissioner Nomahlubi Khwinana said the emerging scenes from that engagement were that the evidence collectively pointed to recurring things, including potential lapses in oversight, systemic failures, and areas where improvements may be necessary.
“The inquiry has gathered and examined a substantial body of evidence, including witness testimonies, documentary records, and videos. All these impact the rights to access to basic education,” she said.
She was not happy that the provincial MEC for education, Viola Motsumi, was not present.
The acting HOD said she was in Italy.
“The buck stops with her. The province is burning, and we have the head of the executive who is out of the country without proper explanation to the chapter nine institution that deals with human rights,” she said.
The SAHRC learnt that the province has 53 259 pupils from 358 schools who are using scholar transport. The hearing was postponed to April 23.
