The efforts to improve scholar transport safety in Gauteng following the horrific deaths of at least 14 pupils on Monday are commendable.
By Thursday, a blitz had removed at least 60 vehicles deemed unfit to carry children. It’s a start — but, as many people have warned, it’s a temporary flurry that will fade.
In another week, once the shock has worn off, traffic officers will return to their normal operations, and so too will the death traps masquerading as taxis and scholar transport.
Given the scale of the tragedy, even the national minister and the premier appeared in black, condemning the recklessness that ended such young lives. Dashcam footage from the truck revealed what we see everyday — taxi drivers overtaking on solid white lines, or pushing into oncoming traffic as they pass on the yellow line — and laid to rest any doubts about the driver’s culpability.
We were told this was a private arrangement, not state-sponsored scholar transport. As if that mattered. We were told about the need to tighten control, for schools and parents to police the transport providers.
When you live in Zola and someone owns a vehicle used for carrying other kids to crèche or school, are you going to ask him for his professional driving permit, or whether the brakes work, or whether his driver is a man of good standing who understands that public transport means carrying people and not bags of cement?
All these peripheral questions distract from the elephant in the room: Why were children from Sebokeng travelling to Vanderbijlpark early on Monday morning? Why is there this one-way traffic from black townships to suburbia each day? Look at the schools these children attend — former Model C or plainly white schools.
The collapse of teaching standards and infrastructure in township schools has forced parents to look elsewhere. When children live outside the feeder zone of the targeted schools, families use cousins’ addresses in suburbs to secure enrolment.
The collapse of teaching standards and infrastructure in township schools has forced parents to look elsewhere. When children live outside the feeder zone of the targeted schools, families use cousins’ addresses in suburbs to secure enrolment.
This happens from Soweto to Sebokeng, from New Brighton to Makhado. The hooting that begins at about 4am in townships heralds the start of a mad rush by transport operators — like the Sebokeng driver on Monday — to pick up and drop the kids as fast as possible before returning to the rank to ferry working passengers.
As a result of this migration, about 16 Soweto schools have been closed due to low enrolment. Ask any township resident and they can point to schools that have now been repurposed. Each closure drives more children into vehicles to ferry them to suburbia.
MEC Matome Chiloane last October announced plans to reopen some of the Soweto schools. What does that really mean? If he does not deal with the root cause of the closures, hiring teachers and cleaning classrooms will not see the return of scholars.
Parents are desperate to give their children a shot at life. They know that at many township schools, teachers no longer care about teaching. The teachers themselves do not enroll their kids in the schools where they teach because — like the other parents — they know there is no education.
Some teachers use school hours to either upgrade their own qualifications, or to engage in trade union work. Union meetings are called during school hours, and the unions are so powerful they are involved in hiring teaching staff at schools. Posts are sold to the highest bidder and the successful candidate is not necessarily the most capable.
Parents vote with their feet and the little ones end up in vehicles like the one on Monday, with tragic results. And while Monday shocked the nation due to the scale of the loss, these dangers are present every day.
It does not matter how many roadblocks are placed on the routes, or how many vehicles are taken off the road. Until education standards in townships and other black areas are addressed, parents will continue to put their kids in the hands of people like the 22-year-old who killed 14 pupils, hoping they return safely.
If the minister, premier and MEC are serious about scholar safety, they should tackle the root cause — and not just the symptoms.
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