The president of the AMPA of the IES of Costa Teguise, Blanca Torres, met this Friday with the island director of Education, Mario Pérez, to demand that the Government provide school transport for students in the 3rd and 4th year of ESO who live less than five kilometers away. And, although the Canary Islands School Transport Law only contemplates this service for students who reside at least this distance, the representative of the parents of students at the center states that "there are 14-year-olds who have an hour's walk to the center" having to go "through open fields" and sections that are "a bit dangerous".
"Costa Teguise is very extensive and most of the parents stay between two and four kilometers away. Last year and so far this year, the City Council had solved it by paying for an additional bus from its Education funds for families who needed that transport, but a new Intervention has come, says that this is not the responsibility of the City Council, and that for administrative reasons it cannot be paid," explained Blanca Torres. Thus, she states that the Council has announced that a week after Easter it will have to stop providing this service.
Specifically, according to the president of the AMPA of the IES of Costa Teguise, the Canary Islands School Transport Law contemplates this service for compulsory education, but while up to the 2nd year of ESO it is stated that it should be provided to all students who live more than two kilometers from the center, for those in the 3rd and 4th year of ESO it is only contemplated if they reside more than five kilometers away. "And the Minister of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands promised us in October that she was going to change the law and extend school transport for those in the 3rd and 4th year of ESO from two kilometers, but for the moment it has not been modified," she assures.
Thus, she decided to meet this Friday with the island director of Education, Mario Pérez, to demand that the service be extended for these students. "He said that he is going to try, but that it would be positive discrimination because there are more centers with the same problem, so we are going to see what happens," concluded Blanca Torres.
