By Hui Luo
There is a huge discussion within the Chinese community regarding the ’11.16′ accident of a kindergarten school bus in the Gansu Province. Some journalists have revealed that this was a privilege school bus from the Deqing County, Zhejiang Province. There are questions whether the model is being copied in other parts of the country.
In 2009, in order to consolidate the safety of school buses, the Deqing County government cooperated with the local coach company. The government invested an approximate 20 million yuan and bought four varieties of buses – 79 buses in total – for purposes of schools. Besides, there is a further 4 million yuan budget on running these school buses each year. About 6,000 students from primary schools and migrant schools in the Deqing County have benefited from these special school buses. In fact, the county government have now announced that these school buses shall have priority on the roads when carrying students – hence, they are now known as privilege school buses by the locals.
Compared to normal school buses, the special school buses in the Deqing County are made of much stronger material. Every seat has its own security belt, and the company has tested these seats to ensure that they will hold strong in a car accident. Moreover, the seats are made of flame retardant materials. The government has asked the company to set up an auto-photograph system in these buses to help identify dates for surveillance purposes. Nowadays, these school buses have been part of civil projects in Deqing. Although this project has now lasted for 6 years, it keeps improving and has received a lot of compliments from the locals.
Zhang Fan, chief director of the Deqing County government, is the leader of the school bus project. “It is very essential for the rural students to have school buses for going to schools,” Zhang said. “This is because they usually live far from schools. We have to guarantee their safety.” When talking about financial support, Zhang claimed that the school buses will not increase economic pressure on parents: “Every student needs to pay only 2 yuan every day, and the rest will paid by the county.” Zhang also said that the school buses are managed by the government, the coach company and another organizations. The staff is trained regularly along with regular checks being conducted on these buses.
Some Chinese netizens hope that these privilege school buses can be used in the whole country. Zhang pointed out that the Chinese government has not taken school buses as an important aspect of student safety: “We need a complete legal system to manage our school buses.”
Hui Luo is a Regional Representative for Asian Correspondent based in the UK. Hui writes about all things Mainland China.
