PARAMARIBO – Last Friday there was a huge chaos at the registration center for School Bus Transportation of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture which is located in the Jessurunstraat. Parents who flocked to the registration center to have their children registered or re-registered expressed their disapproval over the fact that the registrations are still done by hand in this modern era where even retail stores use computers. They explained that the Ministry of Education could have prevented this chaos by letting the students be re-registered at their schools. “I was told that only 200 numbers are handed out every day, so when I arrived there around 9 a.m. all of the 200 numbers had already been handed out,” said a concerned mother who added that she was told that she could wait but that she would get a turn around 3 p.m. She deemed it absurd that parents whose children had to be re-registered had to wait so long while it could have been done via the schools.

The school bus cards could have been sold via the schools. “I will wait until there are no more long lines for the re-registration and I do not not mind paying the fine of SRD 15.” Parents pointed out that they have no other choice than to stand in the scorching sun for many hours to make sure that their children get cheap transportation to their schools because they can’t afford to pay the bus fares of the private buses. A concerned father told Times of Suriname that he showed up at half past seven in the morning and that he got his turn at half past noon. He is puzzled by the fact that the people at the registration center do not digitalize things so that the children who are already in the system could simply send their bus card via an app to get re-registered and so that they could pick up their new bus card after having received confirmation via the app. “It is a huge chaos each year just to get a spot on the state school bus. I hope that they computerize the registration procedure,” said the man…[+]