Learner Transport Policy: Departments of Transport & Basic Education progress report, with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Absence of Transport Portfolio Committee

The Chairperson started off by rendering an apology from the Portfolio Committee on Transport, as they could not attend the joint meeting because it had a budget vote later in the afternoon. She had received a letter from the Committee saying all the Members of the Committee had indicated they could not attend the meeting because they were going to vote, and felt that they needed to concentrate on that. The Minister of Education had also rendered her apology.

The Chairperson said that was important for the Committee to know the impact analysis of the learner transport policy after its implementation. The issue that now clouded the policy was the safety of learner transport, because accidents were taking place now and again.

Mr G Davis (DA) said he was a little concerned that the Portfolio Committee on Transport was not at the meeting, since that Committee was responsible for the primary oversight of the Department of Transport. It was a great pity that the Committee was not present, since the recommendations were supposed to be discussed and produced jointly by the Committees. He asked if there was a policy that exempted Members from attending a meeting in the morning if there was a budget vote in the afternoon. It seemed to be poor planning.

The Chairperson said there was no policy, and she had no power to change the fact that the Committee Members could not attend the meeting.

Mr Davis said he thought that the unilateral decision of the Transport Portfolio Committee to not attend the meeting was wrong and that a full explanation was necessary, since a joint committee meeting had been planned in advance. It was unfair to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, the Department of Education and to the stakeholders present at the meeting, because this would set them back in the process of joint deliberation.

The Chairperson then read the letter of apology from the Transport Portfolio Committee, which stated the reason why they could not attend, and said that they had requested the minutes of the meeting to be forwarded to the Committee.

Deputy Minister’s overview

Mr Enver Surty, Deputy Minister: Department of Basic Education (DBE) said it was very sad that there were students who traveled from Mpumalanga to Gauteng to attend school, and it was also very sad that learners had lost their lives in accidents recently, some which were the result of overloading and other factors which compromised the safety of learners. He agreed with Equal Education (EE) on the suggestion that the Department should meet with other stakeholders to discuss the implementation of the policy in a way that was best for the learners. The issue of standards for implementation was a challenge based on a number of factors, the main one being the quality of the infrastructure of the roads in most areas.

The approach to transport issues in rural areas differed very much to that in urban areas, and this was a reality that needed to be taken to account. The transport network was linked to the infrastructure that was available, which influenced the rationalisation of the allocation of learner transport. When people looked at transport, they had to look at it in the context of infrastructure provision. In urban settings children were compelled to travel to other schools, even though they lived in a particular area where a school existed. What did one do with the learners that could not be accommodated at the schools in the area where the child lived? People had to move away from the areas that they lived in and move to other areas, especially in urban set-ups. These realities took place predominantly in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Referring to Mr Davis’s concern, the Deputy Minister suggested that rather than having a joint meeting, it would be better to have a round table conference where the Department of Transport (DOT), DBE Department of Education (DOE), the Treasury and other stakeholders, such as Equal Education, participated. It was important to have the Treasury in the discussions and to view all aspects in a holistic way during the discussion and to reflect on the impact the policy had had after its implementation.

DBE on learner transport policy

Mr Hubert Mweli, Director General: DBE, said that his colleagues from the Department of Transport were represented at the meeting. The learner transport system was funded from the equitable share, which was money appropriated to provinces and then dispersed as decided by the Provincial Executive Committees. The Department was in discussions, looking at the possibility of having a conditional grant which was different from the equitable share. The conditional grant would be fixed and would confine provinces to use the funds as intended because of the conditions attached to them. The allocation of learner transport had grown over the years, as well as the funding, and he would rather have an engagement with Equal Education than speak of the numbers that the organisation had in their report. The Equal Education document talked of 12.3 million learners who were without learner transport, but there was a total learner population in schools of only 12.3 million in the country, and this meant the numbers from Equal Education were extremely implausible -- they were effectively saying all learners did not have learner transport. The DBE would rather engage with the stake holders and discuss the report in the same manner suggested by the Deputy Minister, where it could take place in the form of a conference.

Mr Solly Mafoko, Director for Planning: DBE, reminded the Committee that the learner transport programme had initially been established in a vacuum, and the need to develop a policy had arisen to help provide a uniform framework for the provision of learner transport. The key elements of the policy included providing access to quality education for children by producing an effective and safe transport system and to improve the planning and implementation of such an integrated system. The policy provided for the establishment of an interdepartmental committee, which had already been established. The committee reported to the Minister of Basic Education and the Minister of Transport, and had held four meetings so far. At such meetings, the committee looked at progress on the implementation of the policy, planning, financial performance, the number of learners being transported in each province, and any accidents in a particular period. In the last financial year, the DBE had exceed the number of learners that were planned to be transported -- the target had been 419 000 learners, and transport had been provided to 462 000 learners. However, there were learners that were still not being transported, even after the target had been reached.

In the last financial year, the DBE had had R2.6 billion allocated to the learner transport programme, and the total budget had been spent by the end of the financial year. In the previous financial year, 521 000 learners had been identified as being in need of transport, and in the current year the number had increased to 556 000. The reason for the growth in demand was the process of rationalising schools. The plans in place would result in an 82% coverage.

Funding was one of the main challenges in the programme, which was why there were now discussions around receiving conditional funding. The DBE was working on resolving the budget problem. Another challenge was the issue of road safety, particularly in the privately-arranged learner transport area, where the agreement was between parents and operators. In such cases, one found vehicles that were not roadworthy, and drivers of the vehicles who did not have drivers’ licences.

The rationalisation and closure of schools had had an impact by increasing the demand for learner transport, and provinces were currently addressing that issue. The rationalisation of schools was not an event but a process, and solutions would not be achieved quickly.

The Department of Transport was engaging with different law enforcement agencies to address the issues of overcrowding and unroadworthy vehicles, and the Road Traffic Management Corporation was also working with the DBE to ensure issues of road safety.

Discussion

Mr H Khosa (ANC) asked how many learners with disabilities had been included in the policy to date, and which provinces have begun operating with the inclusion. He had visited Tsakane Special School in Mpumalanga on the Committee’s oversight visit in 2015, and had been told that there were learners with disabilities who travelled over 100 kilometers to school each day, and were not benefiting from the policy.

Ms N Tarabella-Marchesi (DA) said she found it hard to believe the figures presented, as she had been in Limpopo on Monday and had visited about five schools in the rural area of Vhuwani, and none of them had learner transport. The majority of the learners walked to school, and even in the Committee’s visit to Kwa-Zulu Natal, they had found that there were learners who walked over 10 kilometers to school. She asked if the DBE’s data was accurate.

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) asked what it meant to exceed the target and still have learners that were in need of transport. He asked if that meant learners who were not in need of learner transport had been given transport, or if there had been a failure in implementing the plan. He then asked what contingency plans the Department had to ensure that the learners that did not have transport were assisted. Local traffic officers were not equal to the task of ensuring road safety, and he did not believe that the new legislation would have any effect or bring about change in the country, because road safety was not a priority in the country. Transport service providers often complained about a lack of remuneration and ended up giving up because they were not paid.

Ms J Basson (ANC) asked which other Departments, apart from the Department of Transport, were being brought in to the programme, because this issue went beyond the two departments. What criteria did provinces use to allocate learner transport funding? She had once visited KwaZulu-Natal and found that learners in urban areas received learner transport, and one found that the people who needed it the most were in the rural areas and did not have any. She asked how this issue could be resolved and how it could be ensured that learners in the rural areas received priority.

Another challenge was having parents hiring private vehicles for the learners, and then being criticised by people saying the parents had decide to enrol their children in schools that were far from their homes. The accident that took place in Bronkhorstspruit had not been because the parents had chosen to take their children to a school that was far away, but because the nearby school did not provide the curriculum needed by the learners.

Ms H Boshoff (DA) asked whether the ‘bakkie transport law’ had been implemented, and what it entailed for the learner transport system. She asked if the new bakkie law had been incorporated into the learner transport policy. How would the DBE stop the people who had to transport children in instances where the Department was unable to do so, and how did they plan to compensate them? She said that it was important to have the Treasury in the Committee meetings in order to discuss the budget issues.

She said that she had a passion for special needs, and no mention had been made in the presentation about providing transport and pickup points for children with special needs. After speaking to parents, the information that she had received was that the pickup points were sometimes too far from the school or home, which left children vulnerable to abduction and other crimes. In some instances, service providers only transported secondary school learners and left primary school learners to walk about five or six kilometers to school. About two years ago, the Committee had visited Tsakane Special School in Bushbuckridge, and had been promised by the principal that the school would look into the school transport issue, but there had not been a single transport system put in place. There was a child at the school who travelled more than 160 kilometers to school and back, and it cost the parents over R2 000 to provide transport.

She asked if there were simulators for bus drivers to go for practical courses, in the same way that they trained pilots in the aviation services.

Mr Davis said he was concerned by the lack of urgency among the parties that were involved in planning the programme, which was evident in the lack of attendance from the DOT. What would the DBE do to ensure that conditional grants were spent, unlike other departments that did not spend their conditional grants? He could not believe that only 4% of learners in South Africa did not have learner transport, as the DBE report said, and he asked how the figure, which differed widely from the Equal Education and StatSA estimates, had been calculated. There was certainly an urgent category of learners that had to walk long distances and were not captured in the statistics -- what was the Department doing about this category? Had the learners been identified?

Mr Khoza (ANC) asked for clarity on the number of learners transported in Mpumalanga, because the numbers did not add up in the report. The issue of overloading was a worrying factor, as it caused accidents. Who was responsible for the monitoring of roadworthy learner transport, as well as the monitoring of overloading?

The Chairperson said that if there were cases where primary school learners were made to walk and secondary school learners were given priority, it should be a matter that needed to be monitored because primary school learners should be a priority in the policy. She had received a message on her way to the meeting, and had been told that no action had been taken at schools that were being reported on, after this had been promised by the Department. She said it was unacceptable to have such issues. Even though the Department had problems with funding, it should at least try to meet the urgent needs of learners. The Chairperson supported the Deputy Minister’s suggestion of having a round table conference with other stakeholders involved in the policy, because the meeting would provide solutions to issues that the Committee and Department were struggling to meet.

In terms of the ‘bakkie law,’ what exactly did the law entail and what had been passed?

The Deputy Minister said that in some cases the provinces tended to use the money allocated for scholar transport on other issues, such as textbooks and infrastructure, and so ended up failing to provide the required learner transport. It was the provincial treasury that was responsible for the allocation of the funds in each province -- it was not up to the Department to decide how the funds were spent. In some rural areas, one found beautiful schools that were built through funding from the government and private bodies, but had bad roads. This was an issue that had to be looked into, because the poor road infrastructure affected the safety of road users and should not be an issue for only the DOT to deal with. There were plans in place that would address the migration of learners from urban to rural areas, which affected the implementation of learner transport.

The task of overseeing roadworthiness, and the experience and capability of drivers, should not be done by the school principals, but should be done by the traffic departments and the Department of Transport, because the phenomenon of overloading happened everywhere in the country. There were more than 15 000 schools adopted by police stations, where the police prioritised the safe delivery of learners to schools.

The collaboration between the DOT and DBE was healthy, and it was important to ensure that the same collaboration was maintained at a provincial level because it would not help to make joint decisions at national level and fail to implement them at the provincial level. He understood the concerns raised by Mr Davis, but on the basis of empirical data provided it was evident that the relationship did exist and that the two departments were working together. It would not help to lament all the time about the absence of one committee at the meeting, but rather what was important was trying to come up with solutions. He asked if he could be excused as he had people waiting for him at his office.  

Mr Mweli said that he was forced to respond to the figures produced by Equal Education. The report was partly good, but the problem that he had with the report was the incorrect figures. He could go “blow by blow,” but chose not to do that and preferred to engage with his colleagues on a different platform other than the joint meeting.

Learner transport for learners with special education needs was not provided for in the allocations of the presentation provided at the meeting. The programme for learners with disabilities was provided for in Inclusive Education. As this was a different matter, the specific presentation had been on learners in the mainstream schools. At the next Portfolio Committee meeting, the DBE would discuss issues relating to inclusive education and would touch on transport for learners with special needs.

The DG addressed Ms Tarabella-Marchesi, and said he respected her observation but disagrees with her and would rather argue with her on the basis of empirical evidence and not just observation. It was important to verify her observation, because the report provided was not about Vhuwani, but about Limpopo and South Africa in total.

Ms Tarabella-Marchesi said that she had observed the incidents in Vhuwani, and when one looked at the equitable share, the allocation towards transport had been 5%, and one would assume that it had to be 5% throughout Limpopo. She asked for clarity on the matter.

Mr Nweli replied that he was still going to touch on the 5% matter.

Mr Davis interrupted, and said that he did not appreciate the DG coming in to lecture Committee Members. It was inappropriate and his colleague had every right to bring up a matter that she found to be a concern, and not to be lectured afterwards.

The Chairperson said that she did not think that the DG was lecturing Ms Tarabella-Marchesi, and asked Mr Davis to describe exactly how he had lectured her.

Mr Davis said the Chairperson could defend and protect the DG and the Deputy Minister as usual, and go after the members of the opposition, like she always did. He was merely trying to protect his colleague and expected her, as the Chairperson of the Committee, to do the same.

The Chairperson said that she always tried to protect her Committee Members.

Mr Mweli said he had not meant to disrespect anyone when he was explaining. He had inferred that Ms Tarabella-Marchesi had been referring to the norms and standards allocation for transport to excursions and so on, and that was not part of learner transport.

The payment of service providers was a problem, especially in provinces that had many service providers, which was a prevalent situation. One of the problems was that provinces had many service providers, and so they struggled to meet the payment deadlines. The Department was working on paying service providers within no more than 30 days.

Other than the Department of Transport, the DBE was also working with the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation, which was now evaluating the learner transport programme to get empirical data. The Department of Safety and Security was also involved, as was the Treasury.

One of the criteria for allocating learner transport was that learners should not walk for more than five kilometers to school, and there were different ways to measure the five kilometer distance. Learners were prioritised according to the distance as outlined in the policy.

The Bronkhorstspruit issue, where learners migrate and move from one province to another, happens across the country and some of this was informed by subjects offered at the school. He made an example of himself, where he had to attend a school that taught IsiTswana, which was not his mother tongue, because the school that offered IsiXhosa was far from his home. The issue of Bronkhorstspruit was the same -- parents did not want their children to be taught in IsiNdebele, and so had chosen to take their children to a school that offered IsiZulu.

Many communities depended on bakkies for transport, because a decent mode of transport did not want to transport people in the area because of the poor roads, which was a challenge for service providers. In the case where there were learners that needed transport more than others, that matter would be looked into by the Department and would be monitored. In the case of primary school learners being left behind and having secondary school learners taken instead, this was an issue that was not acceptable and the Department would work on the monitoring and ensure that primary students were a priority.

The Department sets out targets for the year based on the available budget, and the policy serves as a guideline in terms of allocating learner transport. Sometimes the targets were exceeded because the Department pleaded with provinces to increase the adjustment budget, and the number of learners being transported increased.

There were instances where routes for learner transport were advertised, and one would find that learner transport providers did not respond because the conditions of the road were bad. That was why people took advantage of the opportunity and transported children with unroadworthy vehicles. There was a strange working relationship in KwaZulu-Natal between officials from the Department of Education and those from the Department of Transport, and the DBE had had to intervene more than once.

When the regulations had been passed for public comment last year, the Minister of Transport had raised matters such as looking into the issue of re-evaluating driver’s licences, looking at professional drivers’ permits, the reduction of the speed limit, banning of goods vehicles as public transport and a review of the current K53 driver’s license guidelines. The DOT’s approach to road safety was influenced by law enforcement, and the issue needed to be taken seriously by everyone. The DOT had an integrated approach to road safety. This involved a number of interventions which included a scholar patrol programme, the Indaba 365 Day programme, and the Road Safety Council’s programme established in 2015. There were activists within communities that were responsible.

An official from the Department of Transport echoed the sentiments made by the Deputy Minister about having a conference, and said that it would assist the programme immensely. The problem of road and learner transport was a legacy inherited from the apartheid regime, and there were various interventions that DOT was working on to relieve the challenges faced by the country.

The ‘Bakkie law’ was a regulation that came from the National Road Traffic Act. The regulation indicated that no person shall convey school children on a public road in a motor vehicle for reward, and no person shall convey any other person in the goods compartment of a motor vehicle unless there was a need. A light delivery vehicle, which was called a “bakkie” in this case, may be used in instances when there was no other appropriate or acceptable public transport system, and subject to prescribed conditions. Prescribed conditions in the country were not the same -- there were urban, rural and peri-urban conditions -- and the Department intended to create conditions that were favorable not only for learners, but for service providers as well. The Department was in the process of looking at how to implement a 24 hour service of law enforcement on the roads.

Department was also in the process of reinventing and reviewing the country’s K53 tests and wanted to introduce a programme that informed potential drivers of the current conditions of the road networks, because the roads that were built years ago were different from the ones today. The Department planned to ensure that licensed drivers were aware of the contemporary road issues and how the behaviour of drivers had changed. The Department supported the suggestion made by the Deputy Minister of having conditional grants for learner transport, because ultimately without the funding the learner transport objectives would not be fully achieved.

The DBE said that the Department’s conditional grants performance had improved over the last year. Treasury was reluctant to increase the amount of conditional grants, because this placed a huge obligation in terms of the administration of the grants, which led to hiring more people to assist with the administration.

Mr Ntshayisa said he was interested in what the DG had said about parents’ choices and needs regarding choosing schools for their children. He asked if moving to another school because the desired subjects were not offered at the school near the child’s home was a matter of choice, or if it was a need.

Ms Boshoff asked if the Department was able to check how many learners that had been enrolled in non-reliable schools, had enrolled in a new school. How accurate was the percentage of learners captured in the DBE database that had learner transport? How would the policy ensure that transport was only for learners, because sometimes people had to take taxis because of not knowing when the next one would arrive.

Mr Davis said he was troubled by the discrepancy in the figures provided in the report. The Department of Transport reported that only 4% of learners were in need of learner transport, yet the Department of Basic Education said 12% of learners were in need. Was the DBE’s annual performance plan (APP) wrong, or was it the DOT that was wrong? How many learners needed transport?

Mr Davis said that since the meeting had started, he had been in contact with his colleagues on the Transport Portfolio Committee, and they had told him that the “Joint Committee” meeting that was taking place had never been on their agenda. They had sent him a Committee programme which proved that his colleagues were completely unaware of the meeting. He asked the Chairperson why the Committee of Transport was not aware of the joint meeting.

Ms Tarabella-Marchesi said as far as she knew, the Division of Revenue Bill did not set any funds aside exclusively for scholar transport, and asked for clarity on the issue. How long did the process of acquiring a conditional grant take, because it seemed like it was something that had been thought of after the concerns raised by Equal Education? On her visit to Vhuwani, she had visited a school which had been burnt down like all the other schools in the area, and there had been an intervention from the Mashudu Shandukani Foundation and the National Lottery Commission, and they had managed to provide a state of the art school in a matter of three months. It seemed like the processes within the DBE took a long time, because there was a backlog of infrastructure and the road safety interventions were also taking a long time.  

Mr D Mnguni (ANC) said the school principal assumed a lot of responsibilities, such as being the administrator, a traffic officer, a police officer, and a social worker. Was there anything that the Department could do to assist schools in consistently monitoring the roadworthiness of scholar transport? In instances where a scholar transport vehicle was pulled over by law enforcement officers, was there a plan in place which ensured that learners were transported regardless of the issues that the service provider was experiencing? He supported the idea of having learner transport branded, and highlighted that there was also a negative aspect to branding, as it exposed them to attacks because of the changing society, and they might find themselves on the receiving end of attacks by those who were anti-progress.

The Chairperson responded to Mr Davis’s revelations about the Transport Committee’s absence. She said the preparation for the joint meeting had been done from the side of the Committee on Basic Education, and that had been the response she had received from the Committee on Transport.

Mr Davis said he understood that the Chairperson was not pleased with their absence, and supported her, but requested an investigation into why the meeting was not in the Portfolio Committee on Transport’s programme.

Mr Mweli said that there were contractual obligations between the DBE and the service providers that at no stage should learners be found abandoned in the streets, regardless of what was happening with the service provider.

He told Ms Tarabella-Marchesi that the school she had visited might have been renovated, but not built from scratch, because although he may not be an expert, it did not take three months to build a complete school.

On the question of decentralising learner transport to schools, the problem was that economies of scale would not be maximized, and one might end up paying more than if the government provided the service. A similar case had been seen in the provision of Learner Teacher Support Material (LTSM) in the procurement and delivery of textbooks.

The discussion around receiving conditional grants was rather difficult. Treasury decided on the amount, but If the Department did everything according to plan and succeeded in its discussions with the Treasury, the grant should be received in the next financial year.

The branding of learner transport was long overdue, and would help the public respond differently to learner transport. Vehicles transporting learners should have a tag or a sign that made them different from other vehicles.

The Department should be able to track learners moving to a reliable school, as it had a multi-disciplinary team that monitored the data.

The percentage shown did not fully provide information about the number of learners that would require learner transport, but learners who had to walk for more than 30 minutes would require learner transport. The Department used data from StatsSA and its own internal data.

The Chairperson asked why the 30 minutes requirement was used to determine which learners needed learner transport.

The DG said this was because the DBE’s planners used the statistics from StatsSA, which used the notion of 30 minutes. The Department used the criteria of learners who walked for more than 5 kilometers.

The Chairperson said she agreed that the 30 minute criteria should not be used.

Mr Davis said that he did not agree that only 4% of learners needed learner transport, because the number did not tally with what he had seen on the ground and what had been reported to be taking place on the ground by Equal Education, StatsSA and their Department’s own APP. He suggested that the figures get reviewed.

Mr Mafoko explained that in an instance where a service provider could not transport learners due to a breakdown, the service provider was obliged to provide alternative transport for learners. In a case where the service provider was pulled over because of a car being un-roadworthy, then that was a contravention of the contract and the provider had to try by all means to provide transport for the learners. Failure to do so amounted to a violation and would lead to termination of the contract with the service provider.

The Chairperson thanked the delegation from both departments, and said that the conference would help as there was still a lot of work that needed to be done. It was important to have discussions around how to approach the Treasury in order to get the conditional grant. The DBE needed to work on providing accurate and credible data. It was important to discuss the issue of uniformity between provinces and the national department on the issue of learner transport, and this was something that should be discussed in the meetings to follow. At the round table conference, the issue of the “bakkie law’ should be discussed, and there needed to be a plan in place that would ensure that areas that relied on “bakkies” were assisted and there were rules in place that ensure that learners were safe.

The Committee was very much interested in learner transport and in assisting in the provision of quality education, and looked forward to the collaboration with stakeholders and the working relationship with DOT. The Committee would look into the issue of the absence of the Portfolio Committee on Transport.

The meeting was adjourned.