The promotion of children's rights to education as enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa is a mandate directed to the DBE and the Provincial Education Departments (PEDs). Director for Physical Resource Planning at the DBE, Mr Ramasedi Mafoko, said that the Learner Transport Programme is one of the most critical pro-poor policies aimed at broadening access to quality education in rural communities.

The Basic Education Sector and the Department of Transport (DoT) have since developed the National Learner Transport Policy (NLTP), approved by Cabinet and promulgated in 2015, which aims to address challenges of accessibility and the safety of learners. The broad objective of the policy was to improve access to quality education by way of providing safe, effective, integrated and sustainable learner transport.

The Learner Transport Programme is implemented in provinces in partnership with the DoT to provide oversight through the guidance of the National Inter-Departmental Committee. According to the Policy, learners who walk a minimum of 5 kilometres to and from the nearest appropriate schools qualify as scholar transport beneficiaries. The 5 kilometres criteria is currently implemented in eight provinces, excluding the KwaZulu-Natal Province.  The criteria used in the KwaZulu-Natal Province is a 3 kilometre walking distance to the nearest appropriate school as decided by the KZN Provincial Executive Committee. However, the DBE in collaboration with the DoT, is currently reviewing the NLTP for uniformity across provinces in terms of distance to be travelled as the current Policy is silent on this. 

Mr Mafoko indicated that the Policy was designed to prioritise learners with special needs, as well as the integration of transport for learners with special needs into the mainstream learner transport programmes. “The Policy stipulates that learner transport is not applicable for a parental school of choice. The Policy encourages the involvement of law enforcement agencies to curb the scourge of carnage related to scholar transport. This approach was meant to ensure full compliance and to deal with unlicensed vehicles that are not roadworthy and unlicensed drivers”. He stated that it was critical to note that the location of the school transport function differs across provinces. “In four provinces (KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Mpumalanga, and the Eastern Cape), the function is managed by the DoT. The Departments of Education manage the function in the remaining five provinces. As of 2015, 300,000 learners were provided with scholar transport. More than 800,000 learners are currently benefitting from the programme. As part of the programme, more than 35,544 learners with special needs are also transported. Factors affecting the effective implementation of the programme in provinces include, insufficient funding; the location of the function; lack of oversight by PED’s; and misalignment of the programmes with other programmes such as the rationalisation of schools.

“As a sector, we are engaging with relevant stakeholders in the affected provinces to mitigate challenges affecting access. We have already made a presentation to CEM and HEDCOM on the challenges that impact on the efficiency of the Programme, which is an important Government intervention to broaden access to quality education in public schools. In response to inefficiencies that have been identified, the DBE and DoT are currently reviewing the Policy, as well as developing a remuneration model to address the cost of the provision of scholar transport, whilst ensuring uniformity in the Basic Education Sector,” he concluded.