The acceleration of the Eastern Cape Department of Education’s school rationalisation programme is set to add further woes to the scholar transport crisis. In April, the Department closed 86 schools across the province, merged 114 schools, and realigned 303 schools.

Collectively, the schools account for just over half of the 978 identified for rationalisation over the next five years. District Directors have been instructed to ensure that learner and teacher migration plans are enacted, assets are redistributed, and school bank accounts are closed. They have also been instructed to cancel lease agreements and municipal services where applicable.

What has not been highlighted, however, is the impact that these closures mergers will have on the Department of Transport’s Scholar Transport Programme, which is already unable to cope with the current demand for learners who require transport to school.

The Scholar Transport Programme has been fraught with disruption due to insufficient funding and accruals resulting in non-payment of service providers. Earlier this year, Premier Oscar Mabuyane admitted that over 40,000 learners who qualified for transport, have been excluded from the programme.

Education MEC, Fundile Gade has indicated that the Department intends to convert some of the rationalised schools into hostels, which would alleviate some of the transport burden, but such an undertaking will take time, and the Department’s track record in terms of infrastructure rollout places the finalisation of such initiatives in serious doubt.

The DA will be writing to the new Education Portfolio Committee Chair, Monde Sondaba, to request that a joint sitting of the Transport and Education Portfolio be called and that a full report to the committee with regards to the rationalisation of the schools and the impact that this will have on scholar transport needs.

We will also request that the report provide details on how many learners and educators have been affected, what steps have been taken to accommodate them elsewhere, and whether additional infrastructure has been rolled out at the receiving schools.

DA Shadow MEC for Transport, Kabelo Mogatosi, will be tabling a motion with constructive proposals to solve the scholar transport crisis at the next sitting of the Provincial Legislature.

MEC Gade and his Transport counterpart, MEC Xolile Nqatha, must ensure that all learners affected by the rationalisation process are provided with the necessary support to get to their new schools. MEC Gade must also ensure that, where scholars are accommodated in hostels, the conditions of receiving hostels meet the minimum norms and standards for infrastructure and hostel staff.

The DA will continue to fight for learners’ rights to quality basic education in this province and ensure no child is left behind.

 

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