Travel to and from school is an increasingly important issue in NorthernIreland. Costs are rising, pupil numbers are falling and school busesare still overcrowded.
These growing problems prompted the Northern Ireland children'scommissioner to fund a study to examine what can be done to improveschool transport in the province. The resulting report, Safer JourneysTo School, highlights what children, young people and their parentsthink of school transport and suggests what action should be taken toimprove services.
The researchers found that 53 per cent of the 1,394 children interviewedtook the bus to or from school each day. But four out of five pupilssaid they did not like using buses and nine per cent said they did notuse a bus because they were unreliable. Most pupils said bullying onschool buses was not an issue, although there were concerns in someareas partly due to sectarianism.
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