Savings slight from school bus cuts

Press, 13 March 1986, Page 3

Savings slight from school bus cuts

Cutting back rural school bus services would probably save only a small amount of money, the Minister of Education

said yesterday. Mr Marshall was told at a meeting with the Canterbury Education Board yesterday that only one service in the area was definitely running at “over-cost.” Earlier this year, all education boards were told by the Education Department to reduce all services that cost more than $5.90 a day for every child being carried. That is the amount of the boarding allowance, paid for every child who attends boarding school. There were only 47 services throughout the country running above this cost, Mr Marshall said. Many of those could run under cost if the boarding allowance were increased in the Budget.

If that happened, Mr Marshall said, the increase could be brought forward to apply from the beginning of the second

term. This would leave only “a handful” of services running above cost, so that not much money would be saved if they were scrapped. Mr Marshall said he knew that by cutting the bus service, some families would be doubly disadvantaged. “The people who are particularly disadvantaged are the people who have chosen to stay at home ... If there is anybody relatively wealthy (in the rural sector) at the moment, they are sending their children to boarding school.” “I do not want to drive more rural children to Correspondence School. I don’t think any of us want that.”