Free bus rides for students up to October

All students will ride free of cost on the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) buses and the units under the National Rural School Bus Programme from September to October 2025.

Students are required to present a valid school identification (ID) card or be dressed in their school uniform to benefit.

This special provision, announced recently by Prime Minister, Dr. the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, forms part of the Government's efforts to ease the financial burden on parents and guardians at the start of the new academic year, while reinforcing the commitment to education and national development.

Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Minister, Hon. Daryl Vaz, said students up to the tertiary level will benefit from the initiative.

"For the rural school bus, going forward it will [cost] $50 per trip per day, which is really big savings as it previously cost between $300 and $600, and in some cases $1,000 per day per student, which is just unaffordable for the average rural family," he pointed out.

He was addressing journalists while observing Monday's (September 8) rollout of the National Rural School Bus Programme.

Minister Vaz, along with Education, Skills, Youth and Information Minister, Senator Dr. the Hon. Dana Morris Dixon, and Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Fayval Williams, travelled with students on one of the units from the Half-Way Tree Transport Centre to the Papine Town Centre in St. Andrew.

Sixty buses have been deployed across the island under the phased implementation of the programme. The allocation is as follows:

Westmorland - 2; St. Andrew - 4; Clarendon - 1; Hanover - 2; Manchester - 10; Portland - 5; St. Ann - 8; St. Catherine - 5; St. Elizabeth - 10; St. James - 2; St. Mary - 7; St. Thomas - 1; and Trelawny - 3.

"We [are committing 100 buses] in the first phase, serving 258 schools across 122 routes," Minister Vaz said.

"As committed by the Government, we will be looking at other options for phase two and phase three in the next two financial years to cover over 650 [additional] schools in rural Jamaica," he added.

- JIS

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