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 1. BACKGROUND Many children in rural areas are faced with serious challenges of exercising their Constitutional right of access to education. One of these challenges is the fact that educational institutions are situated far away from their residential areas, and there is generally lack of public transport for commuting to schools. The rural communities are sparsely populated and many of the schools are located within the farming community. Communities in the rural places are relatively small and yet they face very serious challenges of abject poverty and lack of basic infrastructure. The majority of these communities are poor and live on farms and in small rural settlements, remote from economic and social opportunities and from essential public services such as health, welfare and education. Also, the reliance by rural dwellers on walking as the principal means of transport, and the absence of separate pedestrian facilities on rural roads, expose them to excessively high safety risks. Surveys have shown that learners in the rural areas are commuting by foot highly unacceptable distance some of them well in access of 15 kilometers per day on a two way trip. In terms of the National standards laid down by National Land Transport Policy, South African Government seeks to reduce commuting by foot to at least 3km within the next twenty years. In response to the plight of the rural communities the North West Provincial Government established the Learner Transport Unit which was initially administered by the North West Education Department. The response was informed by the Constitutional obligations and National Transport Legislation. The Provincial Executive Council transferred the Learner Transport Unit responsibility and budget to the North West Department of Transport, Roads & Community Safety. The purpose of this action was to streamline and consolidate the public transport function within one department of specialization It is within this context that the Department of transport in conjunction with the department of Education is developing Scholar transport policy to guide the development and implementation of various intervention strategies that are intended to assist learners in the Province. The Policy is developed to also provide clarification of roles and responsibilities of the two Departments with reference to Learner Transport. The policy is developed with the inputs from the North West Department of Transport, Roads & Community Safety (Public Transport Directorate) and the Department of Education. |
2. OBJECTIVES OF LEARNER TRANSPORT
Implementation thus for far has been driven through the inter-departmental scholar transport steering committee comprising of the following representatives:
5.1The project currently unfolds along the following streams:
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