Nowadays, School Bus Fares is even higher than School Fees. This has become like a daylight robbery done by School Management in the name of education.
My friend recently admitted his daughter to Deccan School in PB Nagar. School Fees is around 40,000 for a year and School Bus Fees is 18,000 per year!!. School buses do not come to interiors, again last mile connectivity problem just like BMTC buses. One has to drop in the main road. Still so much of fare!!.
So, most of the parents opt out to drop off their kids themselves to avoid this high fees of school buses, last mile connectivity glitch and 'child safety' problems.
Today, I read in TOI that vehicles coming to schools to drop off the kids will be towed away!!!. Another lobbism of school management!!. It is good in the perspective of reducing vehicles..but done for the other purpose.
Why not Government regulate the school bus fees???
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Private vs public school bus
I have seen in some European countries, since school bus is expensive, parents use public transport. Of course public transport is safe(r) and also child friendly (meaning place for strollers, low floor, safe driving etc)
In fact you can look at it the other way around, since public transport is safe and convinient there is no market for school bus and hence they have expensive school taxis for a few rich folks only.
As and aside, somehow I feel it should be a law for schools to provide for parking and waiting inside premises. They can always build underground parking and waiting areas inside their compound. It is not right to restrict the choice of parents to drive their kids, explicitly. The traffic police is right in making it hard to spoil traffic for general public. It is incumbent on the school to make it easier for its kids to get to school.
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Car pooling for school
As school timings are fixed, it should be easy for car pooling.
I read some time back that some Radio Taxi Providers have lady drivers (who hopefully are more careful and more trust-worthy). So hiring such vehicles on monthly basis should be OK. For 4 Kids in a car, the cost will be about Rs. 3 per KM per child. Assuming 180 working days and total 15 KM travel, the cost will be about 8000 - half of what the school is charging.