Many church and private schools open their doors today – the government schools start on Wednesday – and one waits with some concern to see the effects of the government’s change in the school transport system. For the first time, all parents were offered the possibility to send their children to school, free of charge, via a transport service which was promised in the last budget and agreed to only a few weeks ago.

We do not expect the system to work perfectly from day one, but given the problems that have arisen in the past weeks, we expect that there will be more than teething problems.

The government’s idea to provide free transport is a step in the right direction. This was done in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion during school days, especially in the morning rush-hours. But the fact that the government took so long to come to terms with the operators has allowed too little time in which to plan properly. As Minister Evarist Bartolo himself admitted last Saturday, there are still hundreds of parents who still need to be notified about how their children will be picked up and taken back home. These parents do not know whether their children will be provided this service and when, meaning that at least for the time being they need to make their own arrangements.

For one thing, there aren’t enough vehicles to cater for the demand. There are some 42,000 students who will be making use of the service, and this is creating logistical problems both for the operators as well as the parents, particularly those who have more than one child. Some have been notified that their children will be on different buses and will be picked up from home at different times, in spite of attending the same school. This, and other issues, needs to be sorted out.

The ministry, while downplaying the situation, deep down knows that the system is not perfect and the initial weeks will be the most demanding. What is important is that any problems are ironed out in the shortest time possible, so as to create little inconvenience to both parents and children, as well as the operators.

The ministry insisted, with regard to the Church and private schools sector, that the logistics of the services is not under the ministry’s responsibility, but the ministry is offering its assistance because the number of students to make use of the free services has increased considerably.

One particular issue which needs to be addressed is the supervision of the students while they are being transported to and from school. Complaints were made that certain Church and private schools were going to charge parents a fee for this service. Most parents want their children to be supervised on the bus, but everything comes at a price. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said that the government would not stop those schools that want to organize such supervision, further adding that parents would be saving up to €700 a year by using the free transport system.

Given that there was so little time in which to take care of all the details, maybe a solution could have been to postpone the launch of the system or introduce it gradually. But now that the decision has been taken to go full blast ahead from Day One, we can only hope that the system will start with the least hitches possible and that these obstacles are quickly removed for everyone’s peace of mind.