EC Education Dept says it's working to resolve scholar transport challenges

JOHANNESBURG - The Eastern Cape Education Department said it was working to resolve challenges with scholar transport that have left hundreds of learners unable to go to school.

Since the start of the academic year, learners who rely on free transport provided by the provincial government have not been collected for school.

It has emerged that this was due to the department struggling to find new service providers after its contract with previous scholar transport operators expired.

While the National Scholar Transport Programme was started to address learner absenteeism due to travelling long distances by foot to school, hundreds have missed the first few days of the new academic year due to this.

The provincial transport department said that learners from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality had been affected by the current transport challenges.

Spokesperson, Unathi Binqose, said there was a team working specifically on this issue.

"And we are confident that at the end of the week or by early next week, we would have been able to resolve this problem."

Binqose said that learner migration from other provinces to the Eastern Cape had already led to an increase in the number of learners requiring transport.