School bus cuts: Are rural communities getting left behind in election year? – Editorial
THE FACTS
- The focus on classroom education overlooks transportation issues, affecting over 100 students in Gisborne alone.
- The Ministry of Education’s policy requires students to attend the closest school to be eligible for buses.
- Parents and schools are arguing for policy change, citing the need for transport options and school choice.
As the election year kicks off, the focus for education policy has mostly been on what happens in the classroom, rather than getting students there in the first place.
It shows a generally urban mindset among political parties, as schools and parents in the provinces raise major concerns about transportation to schools.
Changes to school bus routes in Gisborne in April this year will affect more than 100 students, according to schools opposing the decision.
The Ministry of Education said it needed to apply its policy consistently across the country to ensure fair and efficient allocation of transport funding.
The response of schools and parents across the country shows the policy needs to be changed.
The changes in Gisborne were part of a regular ministry review. Similar outcries have taken place following reviews in Te Pohue, Eskview, Clive and Central Hawke’s Bay, Northland and Manawatū.
A common refrain of the ministry is that the primary responsibility for getting children to and from school rests with caregivers.
That axiom doesn’t mean much when the ministry is actively reducing the options caregivers have to get their kids to school.
The threshold to cut a bus service is fewer than eight eligible students using it.
That seems reasonable, but the keyword is “eligible”. Implicitly, more students were using the cancelled services, but they weren’t eligible.
To be eligible for a funded school bus, students must attend their closest state or state-integrated school. Year 1 to 8 students must live more than 3.2km from their school, while high school students must live at least 4.8km away, and public transport cannot be a viable option.
The eligibility criteria are clearly controversial with both schools and parents.
In more than one case, students were attending schools less than a couple of kilometres further away from their homes than the closest school, yet they were still ineligible.
The ministry said it was only funded to offer school transport assistance to eligible students. It has not outright said it could not afford to run the cancelled routes, which had previously run for years under its budget.
The demand is clearly there for cancelled routes, as demonstrated by the Central Hawke’s Bay parents who were expanding their new school bus business, which started in response to cancelled routes.
Students have different needs, and schools provide different things. Caregivers and their children should have the right to some choice in where to attend.
It becomes too prohibitive for families if they are locked out of transport options because of that choice.
In 2024, Education Minister Erica Stanford said the decisions around school buses were an operational matter for the ministry.
But now, especially in an election year, those parents and students need at least one politician or party willing to speak up for them.