School bus regulations introduce parents or bear some costs at the end of the year

On December 12th, as of 1700, more than 1,000 people had submitted their opinions on the official website of the State Council Rule of Law Office. At this time, it was released from the "School Bus Safety Regulations (Draft) (Draft for Comment) (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft"), but only one day.

About a month ago, a major school bus accident occurred in Qingyang County, Gansu Province, resulting in 19 child deaths. After the tragedy, school bus safety has become a focus of attention.

"We must really put the school bus safety issue on the track of the legal system so as to attract people's attention and fundamentally solve the problem." On November 27, Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his position when attending the Fifth National Conference on Women and Children. According to him, the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council has been required to formulate the "School Car Safety Regulations" within one month."

This time the draft was introduced and scholars familiar with the legislative process stated that "speed is faster than imagination." In his opinion, the construction of the school bus system involves many departments such as education, finance, development and reform, public security, and quality inspection. It is necessary to coordinate the interests of different departments. In such a short period of time, the Legislative Affairs Office can produce a draft and show that “high-level officials are concerned with this issue. Very concerned".

According to Prof. Yuan Guilin of Beijing Normal University, who participated in the drafting of an expert discussion forum, the draft that is currently soliciting opinions is only a safety regulation. “There are still a series of regulations to follow”, and the financial support and sharing mechanism is one of them.

According to an official who is unwilling to make a name known to the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, in the future, the plans for the various places may be based mainly on government co-ordination, and the purchase of school buses will be financed through public financial expenditures. At this stage, the full coverage of school buses is not realistic.

"This is a big deal."

What are the funds needed to establish a school bus system?

According to the draft, the general idea is to "ensure access to schools, vigorously develop public transportation, and give priority to supporting rural school bus services."

"This is actually a focused choice, mainly in rural areas, rather than full coverage," said Professor Yuan Guilin.

According to another government official who participated in the drafting work, the reason why there are restrictions on the support targets is mainly due to the fact that the above areas currently have “a relatively large demand for school buses”.

As early as ten years ago, in accordance with the national unification regulations, rural areas began to implement "removal points and schools," and schools were reduced. Rural children, especially those in rural areas in remote central and western regions, had a long way to go to school. Black school buses came into being and safety incidents occurred. hair.

“Now that you say that adding more schools in rural areas is not something that can be built in one and a half hours; furthermore, the scale change of rural school-aged children in rural areas is a dynamic process. From this point of view, the government’s pursuit of school buses is a rational choice.” According to people.

In addition, due to the particularity of school buses, the establishment of a school bus system and the guarantee of its normal operation are in fact expensive.

Take the United States as an example. "At present, there are four major school bus manufacturers in the United States, which are divided into four types of ABCD, with prices ranging from $65,000 to $120,000." The US State Department report shows.

The daily expenses of school buses are mainly concentrated on three aspects: driver's salary, fuel consumption, vehicle maintenance and depreciation. The amount of the above-mentioned school bus expenses in the United States was 14.1 billion U.S. dollars, 3.2 billion U.S. dollars, and 600 million U.S. dollars, respectively.

According to estimates of the American School Bus Council, the number of school buses in the United States is about 480,000. Therefore, the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics estimates that the operating expenses for school buses in the United States will be US$21.536 billion a year.

There is no doubt that the establishment of the school bus system requires huge funding as support.

Some commentators worry that if we do not provide institutional protection from sources of funds, we can imagine that schools in the rural areas of the Midwest cannot afford to use the school buses. What are the follow-up expenses such as daily maintenance, gasoline and driver salaries? solve? It is very likely that the school bus will eventually become a dusty display on the school playground.

“Our school bus government has definitely not built this capability, so I personally agree with the school bus in the draft to build a multi-stake investment model for social investment.” Prof. Li Jingbo, the National Institute of Education Administration, who has long focused on school bus construction, said, “This is a big deal.” .

The cost sharing mechanism can be seen from the published draft. In the construction of the school bus system, the country will use the fiscal grade burden to raise funds for remote areas in the central and western regions.

Article 3 of the draft clearly states that the financial support funds required for the development of school bus services shall be shared by the central government and local governments. The specific measures shall be formulated by the financial department of the State Council. Taxation incentives to support school bus services shall be formulated by the financial and tax authorities of the State Council.

“Many local financial institutions in the central and western regions are in short supply. Many places are still education finances. It is difficult for teachers to earn enough wages each year. Where can we afford to invest in school buses? For such places, it is appropriate to use a fiscal model with a central and local classification of financial burdens.” Government officials involved in the drafting work said.

However, according to sources close to the Ministry of Finance, due to the consideration of perfecting the financial system, the financial department has been “very careful” in determining the new special financial transfer payment system in recent years, taking into account the effectiveness of the use of funds, “more willing to increase Financial transfers are not funded in the form of special funds."

The reporter's interview did not know the exact time for the follow-up rules of the series. The insiders said that this has yet to be further discussed and discussed by related parties.

According to an inconvenient official from the Education Department of Zhejiang Province, according to his preliminary understanding, plans for the future will generally be based on government co-ordination, and the purchase of school buses will be funded through public financial expenditures. This is mainly due to cutting out educational funds. Then the parents may be responsible for a very small part of the operating costs (reasonable travel expenses) and run in the form of a combination of a dedicated school bus and a bus system. “Now we have the characteristics of a stage of development throughout the country. The idea of ​​full coverage of private school buses is not It's too realistic."

In different regions, how the central and local finances are shared and who is the main one is not yet clear. Prior to this, the responsible persons of the Deqing and other pilot regions all told the newspaper bluntly that the economic strength of different regions was different and it was not realistic.

The above-mentioned Zhejiang officials also stated that it is more rational allocation of existing educational resources than the clearer responsibility for making school buses spend their money.

He introduced that the focus now is on the implementation of local responsibilities (including the responsibility for building schools). Taking kindergarten shuttles as an example, the parents' call for early child transfers was very high, but it is very clear that the construction of kindergartens has not yet been resolved. It cannot be said that the school bus should be solved directly. There must be a priority and a series of problems. Simply put, children must first have a book to read and then consider a car transfer."

He also said that in the process of universal development of urbanization, we must also consider safety and other related factors, and combine urban planning with student education. The specific methods include: minimizing the student’s time on the road during school arrangement and appropriate development of part of the boarding. Schools will control and slow down the pace of relocation schools, and start school bus services after school and other related facilities are properly arranged.

Social participation in operation In addition, how to operate after the establishment of the school bus system is also the focus of debate by various parties when drafting the draft.

Article 4 of the draft stipulates that the National Development and Reform Commission shall take the lead in associating with relevant functional departments and formulate school buses that are commensurate with the level of economic and social development in accordance with the principles of “safeguarding safety, facilitating students, clear scope, focusing on priorities, government-led, and social participation”. The overall service plan and phased implementation plan shall be implemented after being approved by the State Council.

"The implementation of the school bus system in our country is not realistic because it is based on a single government or market mechanism," said Professor Yuan Guilin. "From the point of view of the school bus's operating model, even in the United States, the government is the main investor, and the operating rights are Various companies."

In his view, the government is leading, and the responsibility of the government is not to monopolize school bus operations, but to create a level playing field, and to play a role in guiding, managing, supervising, and inspecting the entire process. In other words, "The government pays for services, and each operating company can obtain regular stability gains through the school bus system and avoid taking market risks."

Recently, the 21st Century Institute of Education in a report entitled “How to Solve the Problems of School Bus Safety”, summed up the existing domestic school bus operating modes into five categories: school self-management, school commissioned third party operations, and government delegation The school operates, the government sets up a school bus company, and the government entrusts third parties to operate.

In fact, as early as August of this year, the Ministry of Education has started pilot school buses in several domestic provinces and cities, including Deqing County in Huzhou City in Zhejiang Province, Weihai City in Wuhai City and Wudi County in Binzhou City, Huanren County in Benxi City in Liaoning Province, Jixi City in Heilongjiang Province, and Shaanxi Province in China. Xiliang District, Yanliang District. In these pilot areas, there are different modes of operation.

Taking Zhejiang Deqing as an example, the local government funded the purchase of a school bus and set up Yongan Student Transportation Service Management Co., Ltd. (a non-profit corporation) to run a school bus. The county government established a special fund for student transfer subsidies of around 4 million yuan each year to make up for the funding gap.

According to the above official from Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, Zhejiang Province is currently conducting school bus investigations. The general understanding is that there are more than 9,000 school buses in operation, of which more than 2,000 belong to standardized special school buses (including rented and purchased ) More than 6,000 vehicles are relatively standardized school buses, mainly buses, and the remaining more than 1,000 are non-standard school buses. However, there may be statistics of school buses that are not in sight, and it is difficult to count statistics. Parents who share the rented van.

Liaoning Huanren, on the other hand, financed by the government to purchase a campus bus to be operated and managed by the Eastern Passenger Transport Company. The campus team was established to provide free shuttle boarding school students. The government subsidizes operating losses every year.