IT'S every parent’s dream to see their children getting educated without any challenges.
Unlike in the olden days, pupils now have it easy and are able to get to school and back, to be fed at schools and get stationery and everything that'd help them have a bright future.
This, all thanks to the government's programmes, which provide such for the needy pupils and parents.
However, some of these things look good on paper but are a different story in reality, especially the questionable scholar transport system. It's all but a gamble with death.
Imagine a parent sending their child to school only to later receive a call that they're no more. That's a worse nightmare. And knowing that their death could have been avoided makes the pain cut even deeper.
The controversial scholar transport system has been nothing but a threat to the lives of the young ones. Parents whose children go to schools far from their homes have no choice but to enroll them for transport. They hold their breath every day when kids leave home and can only breathe a sigh of relief when they knock on the door after school.
So many accidents involving scholar transports have been reported, and they've resulted in the deaths and severe injuries of pupils. The leading causes of these road crashes include overcrowding in these unroadworthy buses, as well as the questionable drivers, whose driving ability can't be measured.
On 10 February, Daily Sun published a story headlined: “Tears for killed pupil Kgosi (12)”. This after the youngster from Ga-Rankuwa in Tshwane reportedly fell from a moving bus and was crushed to death.
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Again, on Tuesday, 6 February, another horrific bus accident was reported in the Fee State where pupils died. The tragic crash that took place on the R70 road between Senekal and Ventersburg claimed six lives, while 40 pupils are receiving medical treatment at various hospitals in Welkom.
Despite such horrific accidents involving scholar transportation, corruption in such agreements tends to hit the roof. Since the start of the year, many pupils who use scholar transport provided by the government were left stranded. The bus operators pulled a no-show complaining about non-payment.
Some of the pupils were forced to stay at home, while others had to walk long distances. One such example took place in parts of the Eastern Cape. There, the collapse of the scholar transport forced some pupils to walk close to 22 km to and from school.
Thousands of pupils eligible for school transport have been left stranded on the roads and bus stops since schools reopened on Wednesday, 17 January due to delays in the renewal of contracts for the school transport programme.
Now, the big dilemma for parents is to gauge what's riskier to their kids. They must either entrust the lives of their kids in these moving coffins or let them walk to and from school. It’s really a hard one as the struggle for education continues.
