An inquiry will find out whether school transport boarding operations have to improve after a seven-year-old Marsascala student ended up in Msida, the Education Ministry said. 

The Eritrean child who attends the local State primary school went missing last Wednesday after he failed to board school transport. 

A frantic search across Marsascala by his mother, the police and the school headmaster came to an end some four hours later after the child turned up at a coffee shop in Msida, safe and sound. 

It remains a mystery how the child ended up in a town many kilometres away from home, but parents yesterday were left asking about the primary school’s supervisory structures while students waited for, and boarded, school transport. The inquiry will look at the circumstances of this particular case and any improvements needed from the operational side,” a spokeswoman for the Education Ministry said.

She added that the education directorate will be closely collaborating with the school, offering any additional support, if requested. The ministry also sought to allay parents’ concerns, insisting there was “no basis for parents to worry”.

The Eritrean boy, who lives with his mother and brother in Marsascala, had to board school transport at noon.  The students finished earlier than usual because of exams. However, he seems to have slipped through and walked down all the way to the playing field, where he was reportedly seen at around 1pm.

Somehow, he then turned up at a coffee shop in Msida where he asked for a bar of chocolate. It was the coffee shop owner who alerted the police an hour later, after nobody came to pick up the boy. The boy was in school uniform and his school bag was found elsewhere, at a playing field in Msida.