Education Concern was expressed about bus services for school children. For example, the children of a family which lives 48km from Scone travel large distances. They leave home at 7.15am, are transported 13 km to the bus stop, then catch the bus to school. They don't get home until 5.10pm. This is a very long day for pre-primary school children, so children are kept back from school until they are six.
Buses seem to take very long routes that make the days longer for kids.
We need more buses to reduce times. Buses are overfilled, which is very dangerous if children are not restrained. There were long term families in the past, but now there is very high turn over of transient families with major social problems. These families are very poor and distressed, and there is also very great poverty among the old people in the area. Youth Suicide There have been more than a dozen youth suicides within 50km in the last 12 months, with three in one small town.