Holness committed to implementing safe transport system for children

Barrington Flemming, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU

Education Minister Andrew Holness has underscored his Government's pledge to implement a safe transportation system for the nation's children.

Senior government members, including transport minister Mike Henry, made the pledge following the April 7 bus crash in Manchester which left three students dead and several nursing multiple injuries.

On Saturday, Holness used the funeral service for one of the victims, 17-year-old Vanessa Buckle, to renew that pledge.

"As the person who has the responsibility for managing the education system I have a duty to ensure that while our students live; while they go to school; while they seek an education and while they have to take our public transportation system that they can do so with reasonable security, reasonable safety," Holness declared.

"The Government has now redoubled its effort to make sure that we provide safe and secure public transportation for our children," added Holness.

The need for a proper school bus system was also the theme of Lynden Frater, the People's National Party caretaker for South Trelawny when he addressed the service.

Frater made an impassioned plea for a proper bus service as family and friends of Vanessa packed the Stettin New Testament Church of God in Trelawny.

"A lasting tribute to Vanessa and her school friends that died so tragically would be for the Minister of Education to establish a school bus system that can alleviate the problems and the dangerous recklessness that our children have to face," Frater said.

He appealed to the commuting public to make wise choices when travelling.

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"Students and community members when you go in a taxi or a bus for that matter and you see a driver hell bent on carrying you over into a hole ask him to stop and get off and take another vehicle, and if you do that a few times I would bet you that the drivers would begin to take note and cut their speed and ease up on the carelessness."

Member of parliament for South Trelawny, the Jamaica Labour Party's Marissa Dalrymple Phillibert noted that the accident had left the community in mourning.

"The grief is great for us all, but we should bind together to bear each other up, to lend support to one another in this time of bereavement," Dalrymple Phillibert said.

Buckle was among three sixth-form students from Holmwood Technical who died when the Toyota Hiace minibus in which they were travelling to school crashed into a wall in Succeed, Manchester on Thursday April 7.

The others were Lyonisa Whyte, 17, also of Stettin; and 17-year-old Petrina Clarke of Wirefence District, which is also in the vicinity of Albert Town, Trelawny.

On Saturday several members of the Holmwood Technical family paid tribute to Vanessa who was a member of the Albert Town High School choir which copped Television Jamaica's 'All Together Sing' crown in December 2008.

The Albert Town High School choir joined by teachers and the school's principal Wenthworth Gabiddon rendered a tribute in song "Precious Memories".

Gabiddon also remembered Vanessa as an exemplary student while at Albert Town High.

The Holmwood Technical High School choir also paid tribute in song but one member, Carole Smith did not join her colleagues.

"It was too painful I could not do it," Smith told The Gleaner.

Vanessa, whose dream it was to become a nurse, was buried at the family plot at Stettin.