Needless to say that Covid-19 has had a toll on every single life on earth some way or the other, and the people employed in many sectors are trying to heave a sigh of relief as life is getting back to normal despite the surging number of Covid, Omicron cases even as the world is talking about a 4th vaccine dose.
Scores of school bus operators and drivers in the Sultanate of Oman are still feeling the pinch of the pandemic, although schools are open with 50 per cent attendance.
Even though drivers are back to work with the beginning of the schools’ offline-online mode, most of them are not able to meet their EMI payment requirement to the banks as a large number of parents are choosing to send their wards in personal vehicles to avoid exposure to the virus to their children.
“Our plight is even worse because when the schools were not operating during the peak of Covid-19 spread and buses were halted for some time, no drivers were employed, and the banks showed a kind face against unpaid loan instalments’’, says Rajeev, a bus operator with a fleet of vehicles and several drivers and other staff to maintain the buses.
There are dozens of such bus operators aiding the schools in the capital city alone.
“The scenario is such that our overhead expenses such as salaries and bank dues are back to square one, but our income is less than half and our going forward is lopsided’’, he adds.
With the Covid-19 slowly showing its ugly snout prompting airlines to down their planes, parents are still in a ‘wait and see’ mode. They are either not sending their wards to schools or commuting them by themselves if they are sending them to school.
“I transport my two children three times a day up and down the school for two reasons’’, says Ahmed Batarfi, a parent who sends his children to a private school in the capital area.
“In the first place, I cannot shell out RO 60 a month for transporting my kids for 12 days a month. Secondly, there are safety and security measures during the pandemic’’, he added.
Experts opine that school bus operators and drivers are one of the worst-hit during the pandemic. This is because their overhead expenses remain the same with no income whatsoever.
“Unlike in other sectors, school bus operators and drivers have a compound impact on them. Their daily bread is dependent on various factors, such as schools’ functionality, kids’ ability to attend classes, salary of the parents, and other factors which have a direct impact on their jobs’’, said Ashalatha, an auditing specialist.
In this present situation, school bus operators are requesting the banks to allow them some breather by either opting for deferment or allowing them to pay lesser EMI so that survival is not a question for them.
“We request the banks to consider postponing the repayments or to allow smaller monthly instalments as we are overburdened with the expenses’’, adds Rajeev.
Earlier, Majlis Ash’shura has discussed the issue of school bus owners and school guards during the session of the Council during the fifth periodic meeting of the committee for the second annual session (2019-2020) of the ninth term of the council (2019-2023) under the chairmanship of Jamal bin Ahmed al Abri and in the presence of their excellencies members of the committee.
The committee also reviewed the response of the Ministry of Education referred to it by the Council’s office on the issue of school bus owners and school guards related to delayed payment of salaries for school bus owners, and the issue of the ministerial decision issued regarding the formation of a committee to organise the work of school guards and their facilities and as a follow-up, specialists from the Ministry of Education were hosted by the Council.
There are 1,191 schools for basic education in the country, with an addition of 22 new schools this academic year besides 13 schools for post-basic education, and as many as 446 special education students attend three schools, according to the Ministry of Education.
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