A video of a South African boy getting “a ride to school” by hanging off the back of a truck going at 60mph (97km/h) was uploaded to YouTube last Sunday. A driver who saw the boy, with his backpack hanging from his shoulders, filmed him and shared the video on-line. The driver seemed to find the situation quite amusing, but the danger of hanging three ft. away from the pavement is rather overpowering.
The video raises the issue of education and access to schooling, something which is a problem all over the world. When the resources allocated to education are not enough, the amount of schools is reduced. This affects students who now have to travel longer distances to go to class every day: when the transport systems are either inefficient or too expensive to afford, going to school becomes a major problem.
South Africa’s Plans to Tackle the Problem: Action Plan to 2014
South Africa’s action plan was announced in 2010 with the aim of communicating the long-term goals for educative improvement, how the government would achieve them and how people could contribute.
Some of the goals are:
• Getting the learners to attend school on time and every day, taking school seriously and having access to computers, a good meal, sports and cultural activities.
• Functional and safe school buildings together with students and teachers who look after them.
• Ensuring that all children remain effectively enrolled in school until age fifteen.
The action plan does not have any specific outlines or ways in which to reach these targets, as it supposedly allows for flexibility for each institution and community to find, by themselves, ways to fulfill the goals. The video makes one wonder, though, whether the plan is being successfully carried out. This South African ride to school on a truck might be one isolated case, but there is also a chance it is, or is becoming, a trend.
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