Raffles Girls' Primary

[Anon]

Let's put your persuasive letter writing skills for the better of our children.


We have only ourselves to blame if we don't do something to break this messy cycle.

I'll be addressing a formal letter of requests to the P tomorrow. Hope more will add voice to the cause too.

ooioo:

Hi MummyStay, there is really alot can be done, but b cos no one is looking at it, now it is a big whole mess every morning!

If the toilet have only one loo, how long the queue will be? But if you increase to 10 loos, the queue will be cut by 10 folds.

it is so easy to give all school bus priority, that the bus can just drive right to the school, if you have the proper system in place.

But now i see every single car wants to drop their children off at the same place, so the queue is so long.

There are 3 schools but yet if you ask who is incharge of the combine traffic mess, you cannot find any body to be in charge, thus nothing is done.

Schools are seperate into primary, secondary and jcs, so all 3 schools talk to diff boss and under diff mgmt, but one MOE, but no one wants to be in-charge or be busy body, why do so much work but get same pay right

[Tania]

the long distance from home to sch is the root cause of the problem. U can’t expect the travelling time to be short if you are staying miles and miles away from the sch.

[ooioo]

Hi Tania, I too dun believe in long distance sch, but some parents like me have no choice, my girl also used to study just less than 2 km from her school

[ooioo]

MOE have this 1 km or 2 km, rule for school P1 registration, but no such rule when it comes to school bus.


if MOE is really concern about distance, than they should have this rule;

Bus company can and ONLY use 14 seater or smaller bus capacity when fetching students more than 2 km should, this will
1) reduce the time spent by student spend on bus
2) increase bus fare but deter parents from sending child to school too far away

[ooioo]

hi Anon, thanks for helping, I have also written to P last week, but waiting for bus company as they will do their usual dragging the feet to do things hoping you will forget or get used to it


I suggest if we gather enough parents, we all go see the P, the MPs, and even MOE, then they will take issue seriously and get someone responsible to fix the problem,

we really need to so this for the benefit of not just students in RGPS but thousands of others in Singapore taking sch bus to sch.

Hope more will come forward n join us.

[Freesia]

Tania,

We are not targeting the bus driver. They have their maintenance as well.
If govt. can give them subsidy in form of lower rental/waiver of COE/topping up the difference bet. international school bus fee and local etc… then their cost will come down and they do not have to ferry the office worker and will thus reduce the driver’s frustration to shuttle and rush? Afterall, after 9.00am; the drivers are free till the next pick up for afternoon session. As such; they have their breaks as well. Compare to Japan where drivers takes pride in their Job; the attitude is very much different.
I know of bus driver who only ferry international student and lives comfortably.
Also the bus company; they get paid during the March, June, Sep, Nov and Dec holiday even if they do not have to ferry the student. In that sense; the bus driver should be able to compromise a wee bit. Some Tuition teacher and piano teacher only get paid for services. Not all students who study in RGPS comes from priviledge background who can afford living at Hillcrest areas. Some got posted due to GEP etc… Perhaps you are not aware that some of the bus driver attitude sucks big time. They are just some people who does not respond to kindness, no?

[Tania]

Freesia:

Tania,

We are not targeting the bus driver. They have their maintenance as well.
If govt. can give them subsidy in form of lower rental/waiver of COE/topping up the difference bet. international school bus fee and local etc.. then their cost will come down and they do not have to ferry the office worker and will thus reduce the driver's frustration to shuttle and rush? Afterall, after 9.00am; the drivers are free till the next pick up for afternoon session. As such; they have their breaks as well. Compare to Japan where drivers takes pride in their Job; the attitude is very much different.
I know of bus driver who only ferry international student and lives comfortably.
Also the bus company; they get paid during the March, June, Sep, Nov and Dec holiday even if they do not have to ferry the student. In that sense; the bus driver should be able to compromise a wee bit. Some Tuition teacher and piano teacher only get paid for services. Not all students who study in RGPS comes from priviledge background who can afford living at Hillcrest areas. Some got posted due to GEP etc..... Perhaps you are not aware that some of the bus driver attitude sucks big time. They are just some people who does not respond to kindness, no?

My girl has taken the sch bus before and i dun like his service... . And he scolded my girl for being late for just a few minutes when she took the CCA bus and he 'threatened' her that he will not to send her home the next time round. Hence, i do agree that their service is lousy.

We are not staying near the school but distance wise is ok for us cos it takes abt 15 mins to get her school. The bottom line is the parents chose the sch with their eyes opened wrt to the distance from home to sch esp those enter RGPS from P1.

Those who enter RGPS at P4 to take the ge programme, i can understand their problem cos they only have 9 schools to choose from.

It is easy to blame others for the traffic jam etc but the long distance from home to school is really the issue.

Japan is a very special country, the people there are very proud of their job and is just in their blood. It is not possible to compare them against the bus driver.

Lastly, the Govt is not a charity organisation and if they start helping the bus drivers, they open up a flood gate and all the hawkers, etc will be running to the Govt for help.

[HVR]

Bus drivers wake up at what time? Nobody seems to care.


Bus drivers/companies make arrangements to ferry workers so as to keep bus fare down and shouldn’t we appreciate it? They maximize resources by using the same buses to fetch workers after making the school trips, optimize use of resources and shouldn’t we encourage it? We want government to subsidize us to pay bus fare so they don’t have to fetch factory workers? So who fetch factory workers? Put more buses on the road and cause more pollution and congestion? Government subsidize this and that and where does the money come from? Cannot get the money from raising tax so cut salary of everyone in the government including civil servants?

When we planned to put our daughters in RGPS have we considered the distance between school and home? Don’t we already know how the school transport system work at the time of the enrollment? Or do we expect the system to tweak to suit our individual needs once we secured a place in the school?

I can go on and on but sometimes, I feel that we, as parents, must do something at our ends and shouldn’t just hope for other parties to fix thing for us. Why not get your daughter to sleep early, let’s say, 9 p.m. so that even if she has to wake up at 5 a.m., she still has 8 hours of sleep?

[Freesia]

I think it is fair to compare apple to apple.

Pride in their job does not run in the blood. It is cultivated and mindset.
Japan is not a special country. Every countries has it’s pros and cons.
I agree that govt is not a charity organisation. For the loss of income from COE/lesser profit from bus rental of registered school Student bus; it is not charity; they just received less and also they can contain to specific area pick instead of a huge bus picking from Woodlands, Yishun, AngMo Kio and Thomson then to RGPS thus more jams and hiccups along the way. And it shld restrict to Primary school only. Because these are young kids and need enough rest. The benefit from enough sleep outweighs the government economic oppportunity cost of not collecting the COE. Also, 6.30am hardly traffic jams. My friends drive from Yishun and as far as Woodlands to RGPS; rarely jams. If the govt has a will there is a way. It just managing their set of priorities.
We are just clarifying that we are not targeting the Bus Driver as per you have mentioned in your earlier post.
I am positive that the parents here are trying to fine tune a problem they encountered and air a little of their grievances.

[Tania]

HVR:

Bus drivers wake up at what time? Nobody seems to care.


Bus drivers/companies make arrangements to ferry workers so as to keep bus fare down and shouldn't we appreciate it? They maximize resources by using the same buses to fetch workers after making the school trips, optimize use of resources and shouldn't we encourage it? We want government to subsidize us to pay bus fare so they don't have to fetch factory workers? So who fetch factory workers? Put more buses on the road and cause more pollution and congestion? Government subsidize this and that and where does the money come from? Cannot get the money from raising tax so cut salary of everyone in the government including civil servants?

When we planned to put our daughters in RGPS have we considered the distance between school and home? Don't we already know how the school transport system work at the time of the enrollment? Or do we expect the system to tweak to suit our individual needs once we secured a place in the school?

I can go on and on but sometimes, I feel that we, as parents, must do something at our ends and shouldn't just hope for other parties to fix thing for us. Why not get your daughter to sleep early, let's say, 9 p.m. so that even if she has to wake up at 5 a.m., she still has 8 hours of sleep?

Well said. I like yr post. :hi5: