Blaming parents alone obscures the deeper structural failures shaping unsafe scholar transport across Gauteng.
The tragedy in Vanderbijlpark, where 12 young scholars lost their lives, is not an isolated accident.
It is a devastating reminder of how carelessness, disregard for road rules and a lack of regulation collide with the most precious cargo imaginable – children.
Each death speaks to a transport system that has normalised risk, where oversight is thin and responsibility diluted.
Parents are caught in a cruel bind. Those whose children walk or live close to schools often accuse transport‑reliant parents of irresponsibility, insisting they should monitor drivers more closely.
Yet for many families, there are no alternatives. Public transport is unreliable, school placement policies scatter pupils far from home and private options are unaffordable.
To simply blame parents alone is to ignore the structural conditions that leave them with impossible choices. The arguments swirling around Gauteng’s online school placement system illustrate this frustration.
Some insist that if children were placed closer to home, long‑distance travel would not be necessary. While this claim cannot be conclusively proven, it reflects a broader anger at governance failures.
But to reduce the tragedy to placement processes alone is to oversimplify. Road conditions, driver eligibility and the absence of regulation all converge to create danger.
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This is not about one system – it is about a web of neglect. Accountability must be shared.
Government cannot postpone regulation or infrastructure investment. Service providers cannot hide behind poverty as justification for unsafe practices.
Parents must remain vigilant, but they cannot carry the burden alone. Every actor in this chain holds responsibility, because every day lives are placed in drivers’ hands.
Families are mourning. Whether this is the moment to apportion blame is deeply sensitive.
Yet what must be agreed upon is that we cannot continue as before. Safety is not negotiable. Oversight is not optional.
By all means necessary, systems must be strengthened so that no child’s journey to school becomes a journey into tragedy again.
Mourning must be paired with correction, grief with resolve. Accountability cannot be postponed indefinitely, nor can responsibility be diluted by circumstance.
The lives lost demand nothing less than transformation.
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