WRITTEN BY LUKE ONYEKAKEYAH
The death of twenty-two young students and their teacher in a ghastly auto crash in Kano recently, once again raises questions about the wisdom of driving students on long inter-state excursions.

This is not the first time students on such excursions have perished in gory accidents.
The Ministry of Education in each state should therefore regulate the way and manner public and private schools should transport students, including those on excursion visits. All the accidents recorded so far are preventable, if there were standing rules and regulations from the authorities that guide or regulate such irrational excursions. Most schools do what they like by engaging uncertified drivers to convey students. The result of such irrational school excursions is the accidents that send innocent kids to their early graves.
In March 2010, for instance, 42 students and teachers from Aricent Nursery and Primary School, Ore in Ondo State, perished in a ghastly road crash on the Ondo-Ore federal highway. On May 11, 2011, a school bus conveying four pupils of Cornerstone Bright School, in Lekki, Lagos to school crashed on the Lekki-Epe Expressway along with five other vehicles during the early morning rush hour. Nineteen persons, including four pupils were involved in the crash. Three of the pupils, who were of the same parents, perished.
In the latest Kano incident, an 18-seater bus was conveying the students and some staff of Government Secondary School, Misau in Bauchi State to Kano on a school excursion when the accident occurred on the Bauchi-Kano highway in Kano State. The bus collided with an oncoming truck.
Reviewing the acccident, there is no doubt that the driving distance from Bauchi to Kano is two hundred and ninety-four kilometres. It will take an average of four uninterrupted hours to reach Kano on a speed of 80 kilometres per hour. If that be the case, the return journey will take another four hours drive. That altogether means eight hours. It is unwise to pack the little kids in the bus for 8 hours under a very horrible hot condition.
It might take another four hours to crisscross Kano city to do the excursion. Altogether, the students would be spending a minimum of 12 hours. That would entail too much stress and exhaustion on the part of the students. The return journey would be a night trip over the dilapidated highway infested with robbers, kidnappers and sundry criminals. The students could also be kidnapped. So, why were the students exposed to such avoidable dangers?
Report shows they were going to a Hausa service radio station in Kano. But is there nowhere in the entire Bauchi State that students could be taken for a Hausa language excursion? Hausa language is spoken in Bauchi. Why go to Kano for something that is available in Bauchi?
The regulatory authorities also share the blame. There are no guidelines on how students should be transported in Nigeria – no bus specifications, which is why schools, both private and public, use all manner of vehicles and drivers to convey students. The results are frequent accidents and death of innocent students. School excursions are usually fun trips that excite students. It is not a suicide mission as most excursions have turned out to be.
Most schools do not have standard school buses of their own. The schools hire rickety commercial buses with reckless drivers to convey students. Quite often, so many student/pupils are packed like sardines in the decrepit buses.
If field excursion is part of the school curriculum, there should be guidelines on how to go about it. The state Ministry of Education ought to give approval before a school undertakes an excursion. The written approval should be based on the condition of the bus, the driver, the destination, and so on.
It is high time government made it mandatory for schools to have standard school buses for conveying students/pupils. School buses ought to be part of the infrastructure needed in a school. It is as important as a school building. Except this matter is addressed by the authorities, students will continue to perish in chartered buses, but God forbid. It should be stopped forthwith.

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