Unchecked, unbridled:

School vans have free run

From the News Desk

A large percentage of schoolchildren travel to leading schools in Colombo and in the outstations, by school vans but the owners and drivers are not aware of the great responsibility cast on them as there is no registration or regulations to ensure that the van service provides schoolchildren with safety and comfort that such a service should render, a study made by the Sunday Observer had found.

The school principals, education authorities or the provincial road passenger transport authorities were not aware of the percentages of children that use private vans to travel to school and back and that there were no standard rates charged by the van operators.

There were wide disparities and it has been alleged by parents that they charged the monthly amount even during the school vacation time when the vans were not plying to schools.

Though the Child Protection Authority had conducted some seminars to educate the van drivers/owners about the responsibility they hold in operating vans carrying schoolchildren of all age groups from the kindergarten to the A/Levels, most parents and principals said there should be a regulations and registration of the vans to ensure that a standard service for the children was ensured.

Senior Superintendent of Police and Civil Committee Co-ordinator, I. Karunaratne said there were 193 schools in the Colombo metropolitan area and around 800 school vans carry children to these schools while some children used buses or other private transport if they were resident far their schools some distance. Since there was no laws or regulations governing the school van service, the police were only able to exercise the traffic laws and other normal laws regarding the safety of the children.