KwaZulu-Natal scholar transporters have been urged to pull up their socks as they look to professionalise the industry.
South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) in the province engaged with stakeholders from different government departments to discuss ways of co-operating to regulate the scholar transport industry and avoid accidents and deaths.
Having joined the association in 2020, the scholar transport forum had invited officials from the department of education, transport and social development to highlight the challenges facing the scholar transport industry and how they can work together to resolve them.
They asked for government support and intervention to ensure transport compliance of their vehicles, vetting of drivers — including checking for criminal records — negotiating for bus fares with school governing bodies, fighting gender-based violence and other social ills, late arrival of pupils at schools and parking bays for scholar transporters, among others.
Chief education specialist Sibusiso Mpethwana said they were very interested in the formalisation of the industry.
“There’s a number of issues that we’d like the industry to correct, especially the language that is used by the drivers while carrying our pupils. We request them to address the issue of the dress code and the behaviour of their drivers in terms of the relationships that they develop with our pupils. We have a number of pupils that fall pregnant from these relationships that are taking place,” he said.
Nonhlanhla Hlophe, director for support and regulation at the department of transport, said the relationship between the association and the department of education was crucial for transport compliance.
“One of the requirements we need to accept and process the operating licence, is for school principals to submit a letter confirming pupils in their schools would be transported but find that they [principals] are not willing and documents would expire in the process.”
She added that compliance also referred to the quality and conditions of the vehicles used to transport scholars and that they would ban outdated vehicle models from transporting scholars at some point.
She suggested that transporters find standard fees for particular distances that will allow them to purchase and maintain quality vehicles, like the mainstream taxi operators do, rather than each driver setting their own fees.
“I’m always shocked at the monthly fares for some, how do you charge R300 a month and expect to pay for a Toyota Quantum? That’s why we still have the old taxi models transporting scholars.”
Before hiring a driver, they must bring their details to us so we can confirm they are not on the child protection register.
— Buyisiwe Sophazi, director for child and protection services at the department of social development
Buyisiwe Sophazi, director for child and protection services at the department of social development, complained about the behaviour of drivers while transporting children.
She welcomed the vetting of drivers to eliminate those with criminal records, especially those on the child protection register.
“The register has two parts, A and B. In Part A we record all reported child abuse cases: all types of abuses, where they occurred and the names of alleged perpetrators. Part B has all the names of people who have been found not suitable to work with children.”
“Before hiring a driver, they must bring their details to us so we can confirm they are not on the child protection register.”
Community safety and liaison welcomed the steps taken to formalise the structure, saying it would eliminate the risk of children being involved in social ills, promote their safety and make drivers and owners accountable.
Sifiso Shangase, KZN Santaco manager, conceded that this was the first of many steps to eliminate the challenges on their side, including the misunderstandings between taxi drivers and scholar transporters since joining Santaco.
He said there were fears from both sides that each party would further saturate their respective fields, but leadership is working on eliminating those fears.
“The challenge is now getting the information and understanding we have at the top down to the ones on the ground, which is where operations and misunderstandings are.
“We will have to address the challenges they highlighted at all levels. We have to make sure that this was not just a talk show, we will continue engaging them and acting on their feedback because this is still a long road.”
He added that scholar transporters had benefited a lot from joining Santaco, including increasing the period for an eligible operating licence from a year to three years. Now they want it to be five years.
Nomonde Dzanibe from Ixopo, whose sister was injured on the way home from school in 2018, said nothing has changed in the area.
“I don’t see any difference here in the rural areas, nothing has changed. Maybe Santaco is working with transport scholars in the cities but not here. Children are mixed with staff in the morning, they only pick them up alone in the afternoon.
“They are still being picked up in overloaded vans and the drivers are still driving as they please. As you can imagine vans have no safety belts or any form of real protection in case of an accident. It’s a risk we’re taking because we want our children to have better education in town.”
Mandlenkosi Mvubu, Santaco’s KZN scholar transport chairperson, admitted they still have challenges and some may take years to sort out. He condemned the overloading of scholars and the use of unsafe vehicles but added that parents were contributing to the problem by not paying on time and wanting to pay low fares.
“We don’t support overloading, it damages the vehicle and places passengers in danger. You [parents] are contributing to the overload because you don’t want to pay and drivers think ‘the next parent will pay better’ and it ends up being an overload. People who are killing our industry are our clients, the parents who don’t want to pay on time. We’re working on a document with deadlines for parents who are paid on different dates.”
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