“Almost all” school bus services will be provided at the start of the school year, said Wednesday the office of the Minister Delegate for Transport, after a meeting with the Ministers of Education and Labor devoted to the shortage of school bus drivers.
“The shortages of drivers still noted will not lead, in almost all cases, to suspensions of services”, he declared to AFP, welcoming “the very strong mobilization of all the actors ” , who “have organized themselves to provide school transport for children at the start of the school year”.
Clément Beaune (Transport), Pap Ndiaye (Education) and Olivier Dussopt (Labour) met at the end of the day with the professional federations of the passenger transport sector as well as representatives of the regions of France “to take stock of the difficulties in recruiting drivers in school transport, which fall within the competence of the regions, ”according to a press release published in the evening. “This joint mobilization has already made it possible to reduce the tensions observed a few weeks ago in a certain number of regions and to secure almost everywhere, through emergency measures, the organization of the start of the 2022 school year”, he adds.
New developments should continue
However, work must “continue to resolve the medium and long-term structural difficulties of recruitment in the sector”. Clément Verdié, president of the board of traveler trades of the OTRE (employers’ organization), described the meeting as “very useful” because “we had the impression of being heard”, he told the press. AFP. Was for example mentioned, according to him, “the possibility of adjustments to promote the accumulation of employment/unemployment, employment/retirement, employment and end of salaried activity system”.
According to the joint press release of the three ministries, the “school transport action plan” must make it possible, with the help of professional organizations and the regions, to “facilitate access to the profession and to training, improve the organization and working conditions of drivers, adapting, if necessary, the procedures for awarding school transport contracts”.
Each year, around 1.2 million students reach their school, college or high school thanks to a school bus, according to figures communicated to AFP by the Association of the regions of France (ARF). But this year, the employers’ organizations of school transport have been worried for several weeks, because 8,000 drivers are missing, according to the National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV). A shortage which is not new but which has worsened with the Covid-19 epidemic and successive confinements.