THE collapse of the scholar transport in the Eastern Cape forces some pupils to walk 22 kilometres to and from school.
Thousands of pupils eligible for school transport have been 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.
According to Thozamile Qushani, a school governing body member of Rocklands Secondary School, it costs R700 per month to transport a child to the neighbouring school.
"More than 300 pupils have not yet started school this year because they don't have transport. The learners are stuck at home while their classmates are progressing," he said.
DA provincial chairman Andrew Whitfield said: "The blame for this travesty must be laid at the door of the Department of Transport, which has provided an inadequate budget and made empty promises. The Scholar Transport programme is out of money and has been since November 2023."
ALSO READ: Kasi champ beats cheese boys and girls
Provincial transport spokesman, Unathi Binqose said the contract that ran the Scholar Transport programme for the last three years expired in 2023.
"We are in the process of contracting new operators and new routes for this year. We've been working on the contract since the December holidays but unfortunately, the process has taken longer than we expected," he said.
"We have projected that there would be lower numbers, but it turns out that there will be more numbers. This forces us to shift our resources to areas where our services are needed. We have taken safety measures to avoid these problems, but they arise every time we change contracts.
"As the department we have absolutely no control of operators that lose their lives or lose their vehicles. We have a team that is working around the clock to ensure that this matter is addressed. We are hopeful that it will be sorted out before the end of this week. At worst, we believe we will be able to have this matter attended to by next week."
Binqose said they were expecting lower numbers, but it turned out that there are more numbers.
"This is forcing us to shift our resources to areas where our services are needed. We have security measures in place to avoid these issues, but they occur every time we change contracts," he said.
