SCHOOL BUSES OR HEARSES?

Has anyone recently taken a critical look at the vehicles posing as school buses by our private institutions notably the primary and junior high schools? If you have not, kindly do so as a matter of urgency! Because by all standards, most of these buses can double as hearses! They are not fit to convey children to school! They can only be described as hearses! In fact, not all even qualify as hearses! Ironically, this country boasts of brand-new vehicles operating as hearses, whiles the actually dead vehicles are being used to transport healthy and hearty people! Only in Ghana!

I have on several mornings encountered these hideous vehicles on my way to work, with innocent victims, children, as passengers! Sometimes, the sitting arrangement of these children in such buses leaves a huge question mark on the issue of supervision. Each time I keep wondering how and why these vehicles are being allowed on our roads, especially in the transportation of children. Each time, I wonder how and why schools and parents would endanger their children!

A critical examination of these vehicles would reveal that most are unfit to roam on our roads. The external works only reveal scraps on the move! The tires, completely worn-out! Internally, everything is hazardous! Seats are usually unfit to be used! To make matters worse, these children are cramped up like packets of canned fish! As though they are charity cases! The schools usually prefer to cramp up children in these buses for a one-trip, rather than make provision for more transportation options. I sometimes wonder if parents actually consider the kinds of vehicles being used as transportations by schools before signing up their children; it is like signing their death certificates!

The Benz bus is the usual culprit for such crimes! Indeed, the Benz bus has been defaced in this country! The dream bus for most of our schools seem to be the thoroughly worn out or overused Benz buses! Ones that children are usually cramped up in! Whenever a Benz bus is mentioned, it usually comes with a sting.

Indeed, I was thrilled when a few weeks ago, the motor and traffic unit of the Ghana police service decided to embark on a campaign of ridding our roads off these hearses! Many people have various encounters, and stories to share when it comes to the scrap metals, posing as transportation on our roads! The cuts, scratches, bruises, stains, cramps, twists and fractures, to mention but a few! When it comes to accidents on our roads, they have higher fatalities! How then, and why then, should our children be conveyed in such vehicles?

Parents owe a greater responsibility of securing the future of their children. Parents should not only be interested in the terminal reports but should take a keener interest in ensuring that the school environment is safe, holistically! This can only be achieved by ensuring that the right standards are always maintained! If there are no standards, set standards! Schools should not be allowed to operate as they like! There is no point in a school securing a bus when the vehicle poses potential threats! There is no point in parents paying all sorts of monies to schools as bus fares, when those vehicles can get their children killed!

Such buses often leave children stranded, and exposed on our highways, at the peril of their lives! Such buses are moving time bombs! Parents must sit up! Our schools must be held accountable! The Parent Teacher Association in our schools must take up the issue as a matter of urgency before it is too late! If owning a school bus means purchasing a potential hearse, it is far better not to own any!

I believe that the MTTU of the Ghana Police Service should start this cleanup exercise from our schools. Our children deserve better! The Ghana Education Service and other relevant agencies have a key role to play as stakeholders in ensuring that the right standards are set and maintained by our schools, especially private. They should not be allowed to operate on their own terms! Although transportation is a key consideration in running a school, the sorry excuse of a bus is no useful alternative either!

How long would it take for this nation and its institutions to establish standards, and live up to it? Development can only be built through a system of well established institutions, backed by functional policies and legal frameworks! Our schools need school buses, and not hearses!

Anna Esi Hanson ([email protected]), Takoradi, esociocomm.blogspot.com