Madam Chairperson, to the question of Ms M G Boroto from the ANC, Mpumalanga, the answer with regard to transport is as follows. The provincial education departments are responsible for the provision of learner transport. In their planning, identification of learners requiring learner transport is done per school per district for those learners meeting the criteria. The first priority is learners in rural and farm areas who walk long distances to and from school. Learner transport is planned and provided based on the information provided and availability of budgets. Identification and assessment of beneficiaries is done on an annual basis.
The department has not yet received provincial plans for the current financial year. Information relating to sections (1) (a) and (b) of Questions 42 will be provided once these plans are received. Table 1, which I will table because it has a lot of data, shows the total number of learner transport beneficiaries per province in the 2010-11 financial year. If I could perhaps just highlight that, the number of learners per province will be very quick to note: Eastern Cape, 128 700; Gauteng, more than 50 000; Free State, more than 5 500; KwaZulu-Natal, 2 606; Limpopo, 12 688; Mpumalanga, 65 000; Northern Cape, 19 324; North West, 19 482 and Western Cape, 47 792.
Table 1
There are different routes that are used by the agencies that are responsible for transport and, if there are any interim measures in place, we say that all the provincial departments are providing learner transport to learners who travel long distances to and from school.
Each province has its own norms and criteria for identifying beneficiaries. To date, the department has not received any information that indicates the need for interim measures to transport learners -that is, other than the Eastern Cape, where amongst the problems that faced the administration was the transportation of learners. Hon members are no doubt aware that in terms of the notice that I provided verbally here in this House, we took a decision to intervene in terms of section 100. Amongst the areas that we are going to intervene in, or rather that we have intervened in, is the area of transport. I thank you.