‘We’ve been at home since April’: Eastern Cape government taken to court over scholar transport crisis

For two weeks in April, a 16-year-old girl from a dairy farm near Kareedouw, Eastern Cape, hitchhiked approximately 24km to school every day. Her mother had applied for scholar transport, but the provincial government failed to provide it. On some days, a nearby farm foreman drove her more than halfway, and she found rides for the rest of the journey, sometimes paying R20.

If she missed the foreman's pick-up at 3.30pm, she had to walk the remaining 14km, arriving home around 9pm. However, when the foreman stopped using that route on April 22, she was left without any way to attend school, staying at home since then. This situation affects seven children from farms outside Kareedouw who have been unable to attend school since April due to the provincial government's failure to provide transport.

The SA Human Rights Commission has taken the Eastern Cape government to court, seeking an urgent application against the provincial education, transport, and finance departments. They want the court to declare the failure to transport qualifying learners unconstitutional and to compel the departments to find the funding urgently.

The children live on two dairy farms off Klipdrift Road, about 23km to 24km from their schools. Kholiswa Swartz, whose children are among them, explained that they had been receiving state transport before attending Clarkson Primary School until a driver died in 2024 and was not replaced. They had previously paid R300 per child monthly for private transport before relocating to a farm near Bedford, where they paid R400 per child monthly for state transport.

When they returned to Carmel Farm, they applied for transport when enrolling at Qhayiyalethu FET School in January but received no response. Initially, the children paid for taxis at R20 per trip and hitchhiked, walking the last 16km home, arriving between 6pm and 9pm. However, when the second driver quit in April due to the rising costs, the children were left without transport.

Swartz and her family live on about R9,540 per month, consisting of her husband's wages as a tractor driver and child support grants. Neighboring Oudewerf Farm, Ncumisa Magaba, also faces similar issues.