The KwaZulu-Natal Education Portfolio Committee is expected to release a report on its findings into learner transport following an oversight visit to Nquthu on Wednesday.

The committee conducted a physical inspection of some learner transport vehicles in the Dalala and Zicole areas after collisions and overloading incidents were reported throughout South Africa.

Fourteen school children died when an overloaded private school transport vehicle, a Toyota Quantum, collided head-on with a truck in Vanderbijlpark on Monday, January 19, 2026.

Hlengiwe Mavimbela, acting chairperson of the Education Portfolio Committee, said the members were divided into two teams, with each team observing learner transport from the pickup points to learners’ arrival at schools.

“We are concerned about recent accidents involving learners, and therefore, as a portfolio committee, we took it upon ourselves to physically observe the entire process of picking up children, including inspecting the roadworthy aspect of the learner transport,” she said.

Mavimbela added that it was not possible to visit all schools, but from the few that the committee visits, it will give them a sense of the state of learner transport.

She explained that following these inspections, the district presentation on the state of learner transport will be discussed.

The national portfolio committee presented a progress report on January 28, 2026, on school year readiness. It focused on seven key issues, one of them being learner transport.

The report indicated that the number of learners requiring transport nationally was 630,227, while the number of learners actually getting transport was 740,993. In KZN, 233,000 require transport, while only 76,598 are being transported according to records available to the Department of Education (DoE).

Provinces with a larger number of learners who are not transported are Gauteng and the Northern Cape. The Western Cape is the only province that reported that all learners who need transport are transported.

The challenges they face are:

Gauteng:

• Limited budget. 
• Non-payment of service providers. 
• Communities that want to benefit without following the process. 

Northern Cape:

Increased demand for transport exceeds the projected need, putting pressure on the available budget.The DoE is establishing a task team to look into new contracts.

zainul.dawood@inl.co.za

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