Johannesburg – The urgent need to fix school transport in KwaZulu-Natal has once again come to the fore, this time through data compiled by Statistics South Africa.
The National Household Travel Survey, released by the stats agency in collaboration with the Department of Transport, reports that about 10.1-million pupils across the country walk all the way to their educational institution.
The study found that across the provinces, the highest percentage of children who walked to school were in KwaZulu- Natal at 20.3% and Gauteng (17.7%), followed by 14.6% in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.
“All South Africans have a constitutional right to have access to basic education and further education. The time from home to school or educational institution is an important factor to consider when determining the ease or diffi culty one would experience when travelling to these institutions,” shows the report.
The report comes just weeks after the portfolio committee on basic education raised its concern on the inability of the provincial department to provide all the qualifying pupils with transport.
This is aft er the legislators were informed that due to budgetary constraints, the department of education in KwaZulu- Natal could provide transport for only 62 070 of the qualifying 117 000 pupils that require transport in the province.
“Permanent solutions must be found for this problem especially considering that 70% of schools in KZN are in rural areas and they consist of learners largely who come from poor family backgrounds,” the committee’s chairperson, Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba said at the time. MEC for education in KwaZulu-Natal Kwazi Mshengu, who also serves as acting transport MEC, said owing to budgetary constraints, the department was unable to transport all pupils that need the service in the province.
“We have a shortfall in terms of providing learner transport to all deserving learners in the province. However, we are unable to extend the programme because of insufficient funding because the only grant that we receive for learner transport is R366-million. According to our cost estimates, we need just over R1-billion to provide an effective learner transport service.”
Equal Education’s head of research, Hopolang Selebalo, said budget cuts to education were proving to be detrimental to rural provinces.
“In KwaZulu-Natal, the majority of learners who qualify for scholar transport will have to walk to school this year due to a R634-million budget shortfall.”
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