By Charmaine Ndlela
Build One South Africa (BOSA) on Tuesday urged the government to launch a nationwide inquiry into the country’s scholar transport system after the deaths of 14 learners in a crash near Vanderbijlpark on Monday.
“The tragic and wholly preventable deaths of 14 young learners this week, who lost their lives while being transported to school in a scholar transport vehicle, have exposed the urgent need for stricter safety enforcement and proper oversight in the scholar transport system,” BOSA spokesperson Roger Solomons said in a statement.
The crash happened early on Monday morning when a privately operated scholar transport vehicle collided with a truck in the Vanderbijlpark area of Johannesburg. At least 11 children were declared dead at the scene, with reports indicating others died of their injuries later.
Investigators are examining possible road-safety and compliance issues, including whether the vehicle was overloaded. The driver of the crash, according to Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane, had previously been reprimanded for reckless driving.
Solomons said BOSA wanted Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube “to at once launch a nationwide inquiry into the entire scholar transport system, covering both publicly subsidised and privately arranged scholar transport”.
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“The inquiry must interrogate, at minimum: The screening, training, and vetting of scholar transport drivers; the roadworthiness and maintenance of vehicles; the enforcement of consequences for reckless and negligent driving; the widespread and dangerous practice of overcrowding [and] oversight and accountability mechanisms across provinces,” he said.
Gwarube told Parliament last year that 667 000 learners make use of government-subsidised scholar transport, while a further 2.8 million learners rely on private scholar transport arranged by parents. Solomons said that at the time, Gwarube said the government wanted to move more learners to scholar transport.
“If that is indeed the goal, then government has a clear responsibility to first fix the system. Expanding a broken and unsafe system without urgent reform would be irresponsible,” he said.
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He said that if the minister did not act, BOSA would pursue other accountability measures, including “a full review of the National Learner Transport Policy of 2015” and “a Parliamentary Inquiry led by the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, in terms of section 55 of the Constitution”.
Solomons also pointed to a South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) investigation into the North West province’s scholar transport programme, saying the commission found systemic failures that “amounted to serious violations of human rights, particularly affecting poor and rural children,” including situations in which learners were exposed to unsafe conditions that undermined access to education.
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