Fees probe still not concluded

As thousands of students return to school today, the Office of Fair Competition has still to conclude an investigation it launched last year into school transport fees.

Over the past few years, parents have had to fork out more and more for school transport, which is still unregulated.

The investigation was launched at the end of September last year.

A spokesman for the Office of Fair Competition said the investigation was still ongoing because the OFC was waiting for the new prices to be issued so that it could compare them to last year's prices. This exercise would allow the OFC to establish a trend in pricing structures, the spokesman said.

Industry sources said minibus owners were aware of the difficulties parents were facing to meet the rising cost of their children's education, especially school transport fees. In view of this, they were not planning to raise their prices but the problem was that many more parents were opting to take children to school themselves. Car-pooling was also on the rise. This meant less business for minibuses.

Parents have been told that the price of school transport would only be fixed some time into the new scholastic year because the operators wanted to see how many people would be using their services. They have seen a sharp decline in bookings but are hoping parents would change their mind at the last minute.

Last year, when school transport fees had gone up considerably, transport operators argued that prices had to rise because of higher diesel costs and a requirement that all schoolchildren had to buckle up on their way to or from school. This meant that younger children could not share seats.

Some van owners said they had to fit seat belts because their vans did not have any installed on the back seats.

Summer holidays have ended for 34,437 students who return to school today when the new school in Pembroke will also open its doors to its first students. Costing over €8 million, the school is the only one that will be able to generate its own energy.

Education Minister Dolores Cristina said in a radio interview that over the summer months, the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools refurbished 60 schools.

On the consultation document of the transition from primary to secondary without too much stress on the students, Mrs Cristina said the bulk of the reform would come into force in 2011.

She said the toughest challenge in the education system reform was reaching the target that, by 2015, 85 per cent of students would pursue post-secondary studies.