NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Students attending 15 public schools in the capital will now have the convenience of catching the bus on campus rather than having to go to a bus stop.
Officials rolled out the pilot program of the School Public Busing System on Tuesday.
It was spearheaded by school resource officers under the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) and aims to reduce the number of fights after school and create a more efficient option for students to get home safely and in less time.
RBPF Chief Superintendent and program coordinator, Chaswell Hanna said that officials from the Road Traffic Department, Public Bus Union, Bahamas Union of teachers, and the Ministry of Education all collaborated to bring the project to life.
“A number of these fights involve students who were walking to the bus stop or waiting on the bus at a bus stop. So we put our heads together with the appropriate stakeholders and we came up with an idea that we believe will be helpful in reducing these incidents,” he said.
Over 20 bus drivers were selected to facilitate the process through the Road Traffic Department and the principals of various public schools and school resource officers identified students who would need the service, noting that as they make assessments they would expand the number of schools, students and buses where the demands are.
Hanna explained that the program will not come at a cost to the government because students will still be required to pay the regular bus fee when the buses come to the public junior and senior high school campuses around 2.30pm.
“This is an innovative and creative preventative tool for the safety of our children we don’t want anything to happen to these students on or off campus and we believe that this pilot program that we launched this semester will go a long way in reducing those incidents,” Hanna continued.
“We’re going to be watching the numbers on a daily basis and we’re going to see what impact this program is having; and any adjustments we need to make as we build out this program we will do so.”
Principal of S.C. McPherson Shavanna Darville said that she is grateful for the convenience that not only helps students but will be a relief for teachers who often have to wait hours after school on bus stops to ensure that each student gets onboard a bus safely.
“It makes life a whole lot easier for us at school administrators and for our students that they are able to board buses right here in the schoolyard we’ve run this for the past two days, this is day three of this initiative and you can see the pleasure in the faces of our students as they enter the bus right here on the campus,” she said.
“Most of our students would have to walk almost half a mile to catch the bus that will be taking them over to the Carmichael Road area, additionally, they would have fought with busses or competed with busses who would have the regular public driving along with them so space would have been a problem an issue for our students,” Darville said.
