Every day, Romanian children walk over 2 million kilometres to and from school! And those who don't walk risk their lives on "casual" rides! SAVE ROMANIA'S CHILDREN! Right the wrong committed by Government Emergency Ordinance 51/2019
Dear Prime Minister,
We bring to your attention a discriminatory legislative error that violates an essential right in Romanian democracy, namely the right to education.
Every day, in Romania, there are more than 125,000 pupils living in another locality who commute to school every day, according to figures provided by the Romanian Academic Society. The national average distance a commuting pupil has to travel is 18 kilometres.
On 25 June 2019, Government Emergency Ordinance No. 51/2019 was issued, removing county transport from Law No. 92/2007 and the provisions governing county transport as a public service. This legislation makes pensioners, people with disabilities and, most importantly, pupils have limited access to transport services as the ordinance removes the discounts granted for county transport. Secondly, because of the same ordinance, many of the transportation routes, which are considered unprofitable, will be removed from the carriers' routes.
Thus, for many students, the ordinance means that they will either walk to school or take the local bus routes. The safety of children thus comes into question in the case of "casual" rides, with the most recent well-known 'Caracal' case.
Given that the cost of transporting children to school is unbearable for many families, such a situation will certainly lead to a significant increase in school drop-outs, given that at least one child in three lives in abject poverty. In 2014, a year after the Ponta government stopped paying full school fees, the number of school dropouts increased by 4,000.
In addition, Romania is still the third country in the European Union in terms of early school leavers (19.1% of the population aged 18-24). It is also well known that one in five pupils in upper secondary education commutes to classes, and more than half of the population aged 15-19 lives in rural areas, and that secondary and vocational schools are generally located in urban areas.
In this context, we ask you, Prime Minister, to prioritise this situation and to correct the legislative framework by establishing new rules for the application of the law on student transport discounts.
With kind regards,
FACIAS