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Spending on school buses

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Apathy has its consequences[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

It might seem a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted - but if there are other horses in the stable then surely it is better to bolt the door later rather than never - so Premier Wen Jiabao's promise on Sunday that new safety regulations for school buses will be finalized in a month is good news.

It highlights the importance the central government has attached to this issue after a series of fatal traffic accidents involving school buses in recent months.

And it is good news that both the central and local governments will jointly fund school buses. But it is wishful thinking to believe that money alone will solve the problems once and for all.

Guaranteeing that children are able to travel safely to and from school requires both financial and institutional government efforts.

It is also unrealistic to expect that central and local governments will be able to provide all schools with such a service.

Therefore it is imperative that detailed plans are made on the basis of thorough investigations to determine in which areas such government-funded bus services are most needed and how much money will have to be spent in the procurement of suitably roadworthy vehicles and the hiring of capable drivers to ensure these services are as safe as can be.

And while school bus safety is clearly a matter of urgency, haste makes waste, so, rather than a knee-jerk reaction, enough time and effort must be spent in these investigations to determine exactly where such a service will be of most benefit and to establish a mechanism that will ensure that the money is spent as intended.

That almost all the accidents occurred in underdeveloped rural areas suggests that rural kids are the ones most in need of a safe and reliable school bus service. The sharp drop in the number of school-age children in rural villages in recent years has resulted in the closure of many village schools and an increasing number of rural schoolchildren now have to travel a long way to attend schools in towns.

If investigations show that a government-funded bus service is needed, strict rules need to be applied and enforced to ensure that the service is used, maintained and supervised properly and that if necessary the regulations and traffic flow are modified so as to reduce the chances of school buses being involved in traffic accidents.

Meanwhile it is not unknown for some local government departments or institutions to exploit central government policy in order to extract extra funds from the central coffers, so the use of funds for school bus services must be carefully monitored.

Last but not the least, as many students as possible should be able to attend schools within walking distance of their homes.

All these will ensure that public money is wisely spent and that those children really in need of such a service are the ones that benefit.