Transport scheme chaos exposes Labour’s ‘vote catching’ mentality - Delia

The government’s decision to offer free transport to students attending private schools was just a “vote catching exercise” that was ill-prepared, Opposition leader Adrian Delia said this morning. “While I commend this measure, it transpires that a number of students who had no problems before have ended up with no transport, and in some cases even parents willing to keep paying are being denied this service,” he said. Dr Delia criticised the measure during in a short interview over the phone on the Nationalist Party’s radio station Net FM. His comments were made in the wake of an admission made by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo on Saturday that there were still 829 students from Church and independent schools on the waiting list. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Sunday suggested this could have been a result of parents rushing to register their children at the last minute. A few days ago Times of Malta reported that many schools were told by service providers they could not guarantee the service like previous years and parents who had paid for private school transport for many years were informed there was no room for their children anymore because vans were already full. Dr...