Totana City Council is urging the Ministry of Education to study and take into consideration a Regional School Transportation Plan that includes as beneficiaries of this service students of non-compulsory education (especially Baccalaureate and Vocational Training).
The initiative, which was approved in the plenary session of October unanimously, aims to facilitate that no student may be left without attending their school for the lack of this basic service.
In addition, it is suggested to carry out the necessary legal modifications in the school transport order so that the students who teach in the different centers of the municipality can make use of said transport, when there are remaining places, establishing a level of priorities, as be age or distance from the educational center, among others.
Current regulations
The regulations on school transport states that the Ministry of Education and Culture may authorize the use of buses assigned to routes contracted with companies in the sector by post-compulsory education students enrolled in public schools.
This circumstance occurs in cases where there are surplus seats in the vehicle and there are circumstances that make it particularly difficult to travel to the corresponding centers because there are no regular transport routes that can be used, nor the possibility of hiring discretionary services due to the scarcity number of students affected.
In the event that the number of students requesting to use the service is greater than the number of places available, those students whose residence is further away from the center will have preference.
But the reality is that many of the students of non-compulsory education are excluded from the use of such school transport, since compulsory education students have priority when it comes to benefiting from this service.
For this reason, it is urgent that the Ministry of Education make available to students the necessary places so that no student runs out of school transportation.
From the totanero Consistory, it is considered that, as it happens in many municipalities of the Region, the displacement of a student of non-compulsory education can not be subject to the existence or not of places.
In other municipalities the responsibility that should have the administration falls on the parents' association, being these who contract the transport without being able to take charge of the families of the economic cost that brings them that their children move daily to the corresponding educational center.
In other cases, the municipalities are subsidizing part of this transport, assuming improper powers, which is coupled with an economic burden that they can not afford either.
