Source: Radio New Zealand
File photo. 123rf.com
- Manawatū community starts user-pays school bus after cancellation of ministry-funded service.
- Parents and guardians take loans and use savings to pay for it.
- Ministry has cancelled 13 services after a review it says is routine.
Manawatū parents and caregivers are dipping into their savings and even taking out loans to fund a bus service to get their children to school.
This comes after some school buses that used to run into Palmerston North were axed as a result of a Ministry of Education review into more than 250 routes nationwide.
One high school reports that 300 of its students are affected by the changes.
‘Just not fair’
Rongotea is one of the areas affected by the changes, where high school students have a 15-minute ride into Palmerston North.
Families now have to pay for the bus that was previously free for decades.
Nikita Walker has helped lead efforts to organise the user-pays service for children, at a cost of more than $500 a term per child.
“I’ve had to ask family members to help me come up with funds to pay for my daughter’s term pass because we are a one-income family and we just can’t pull that off, and I don’t see it being able to be pulled off for future terms,” she said.
“It’s causing hardship for a lot of us and it’s just not fair.”
The ministry has reviewed routes to ensure compliance with its policies, including that students must go to their closest school.
Since then it has cancelled 13 services, including the one that used to run from Rongotea and Tangimoana into Palmerston North, which fell foul of these rules but had been in place for as long as residents can recall.
Walker’s daughter Jasmine would be eligible for a bus to Manawatū College in Foxton, rather than Palmerston North Girls’ High School, where she attends – but she said changing schools with her two senior years remaining was not an option.
“I honestly wouldn’t go. I really would not go. Honestly, I’d probably just get homeschooled.”
Nikita said while about 30 students caught the user-pays bus, not everyone could afford it.
“They are currently stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“Some of them are managing to do carpooling. I’ve had families reach out to me that are saying, ‘Well, we might actually have to quit our jobs and relocate’, and sell their homes because they just can’t manage this.”
Loans and savings pay for service
Other parents and guardians in Rongotea have found ways to pay for the bus, for now at least.
“My boss is actually paying for it. I actually have to pay that back otherwise my daughter wouldn’t be going to school because I cannot afford that, being a single-income family.” said Stacey Monks.
“At the moment I’ve had to go into my savings to get the teenager who’s at [Palmerston North school] QEC, just for the term, to get him to school,” said a Rongotea grandmother, who asked not to be named.
“We’ve already started saving for next term because that’s another bill that has to be there, but at this time of the year you’ve got a high school uniform that needs to be paid for and you’ve got devices and stationery and all the rest of it. It’s just a cost that’s just unfair for our rural communities,” said Jess Greene, who is also leading the charge to stand up for affected families.
Review is routine – ministry
Ministry group manager, school transport, James Meffan said reviewing school bus routes was routine, as the location and number of eligible students constantly changed.
Last year it looked at 265 routes, out of more than 1400.
As well as the 13 cancelled routes it added 13 new ones, merged 23, lengthened 73 and shortened 114.
Meffan said it would put on buses in places such as Rongotea if enough students were enrolled at their closest school.
The ministry did not review bus routes with the intention of saving money.
School ponders user-pays buses
At Palmerston North Boys’ High School, rector David Bovey said more than 300 students were affected by the changes, and the school was thinking of putting on its own user-pays services.
“A number of young men who were due to come here in year nine this year, who are from surrounding areas, decided not to because they can’t get in here on the bus,” he said.
“We’ve had some of the senior boys who have been trying to make their own way here, but it’s been a real issue for a number of parents. We had a couple of boys who couldn’t start on time, at the same time as everyone else, because they had to organise transport.”
Education Minister Erica Stanford said bus routes weren’t for her to decide.
“The school bus rules and regulations have been in place for over 100 years and have never been changed and at some point in the future we’ll need to take a look at them, but it is an operational job for the ministry so ministers don’t get involved.”
For now, parents such as Nikita Walker were hoping the ministry does a U-turn – something that has happened before, when services were under threat in the 1990s.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
