Danger ahead: Students suffer as school vans ply unchecked

Govt, police, schools, van owners all point fingers, refuse to take responsibility.

KARACHI:

As the bell rings to announce the end of school for the day, a teacher approaches the reception of Brilliant Career Grammar School located in Nazimabad Block 5, and picks up a microphone to call one group of students after another — from Montessori, primary, lower secondary and secondary sections.

In order to save the vicinity from being clogged, the school administration has placed timings for the private school vans to pick a specific group of students with a 15-minute interval between each.

The school also serves as the head office for the All Private Schools Management Association that has around 6,000 member schools. Chairperson Syed Khalid Shah explained that the organisation comprises schools affiliated with the Board of Secondary Education Karachi.

Shah claimed that almost no member school possesses a student transportation system of its own, nor are any members directly linked with the private school vans.

“Schools are only responsible for the security of children while they are within the boundary walls,” said Shah. “In the public realm, it is the government’s job to ensure their safety, while law-enforcement agencies must ensure that these measures are upheld.”

Shah believes that the government seems inclined to shift the responsibility of traffic police onto the school administrations. “I do not know if the Sindh government plans to abolish its inept traffic police department anytime soon,” said Shah. “If the government is truly concerned, then why doesn’t the government establish a separate unit for inspection and issuance of fitness certificates and route permits for school vans?”

Jameel Yusuf, who represents an association of schools using the Cambridge curriculum, appeared to be on the same page. “I am shocked at the notification,” he said, referring to the Karachi commissioner’s notification directing all school owners to fit certified CNG cylinders in their vans within 15 days, otherwise the schools would be held responsible. “How can the schools be blamed for the actions of those that we have no authority over? Maybe they will start blaming us for all accidents that befall students.”

Both Yusuf and Shah feel that whoever owns the vehicles should be held responsible for them while parents should ensure that the vans their children use comply with the safety measures — schools should only be held accountable if the vans belong to the schools.

“I personally check the vans outside my school to ensure that they are safe for children,” said Yusuf. “I do this out of prudence rather than out of a sense of responsibility.”

However, at a meeting with the Karachi commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui on January 17, the school associations agreed to check the fitness certificates for the CNG cylinders installed in the vans used by the students of their member schools.

Outside the school

Muhammad Zafar, who owns school vans, has been successfully running his business for the past 25 years in Nazimabad and North Nazimabad thanks to his ‘friendly relations’ with the traffic police of the area. “Being the owner of these vans, I believe that I am personally responsible for the children’s safety and I believe that I am fulfilling that responsibility conscientiously.”

However, not all school van owners own up to this responsibility. Yasir Khan, another van owner, said that they are able to flout the regulations by paying monthly bribes to traffic police. “Security personnel provide specific stickers to school vans which we put on our windshields,” said Khan. “These stickers indicate that the vehicle is paying a monthly bribe to a particular traffic check post and is therefore not harassed by the police.”

While waiting for students outside The Lyceum School, a van driver commented that he does not need a route permit or a fitness certificate as long as he pays the policemen.

What is being done?

Most of the school vans across the city are going unmonitored as the Motor Vehicle Ordinance, 1965, merely defines a ‘school bus’ and contains no other specifications that may ensure the safety of school-going children.

Every traffic incident involving school vans leads to officials issuing directives on monitoring the vehicles for security measures. However, these ‘measures’ hardly make any actual improvement to the situation. Perhaps the biggest reason that all efforts seem to fail is the blurred lines of responsibility of the government, school administration and traffic police, with all three clashing over important issues.

School administrations agree that the government has chalked out safety measures for school vans but insist that schools and van owners should be treated as two separate entities. For example, while the directives issued by the then traffic police DIG Abdul Khaliq Shaikh in the aftermath of the Gujrat school van incident last year went almost completely unopposed when they were issued, at the time of compliance, schools refused to take responsibility, stating that the transport facility is a contract between the children’s parents and the van owners.

The directives stated that all school vans should have a specific colour and should have fire extinguishers, emergency exits, certified CNG cylinders, route permits and vehicle fitness certificates. However, there is no official mechanism in place for the inspection of small vans that make up a majority of school vans but still do not hold commercial licence plates.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2014.