We are all familiar with the ancient African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Frankly, it is true.

It does take a community, tribe, district, province and confederacy (village) to raise a child.

The people your children are around with in their everyday life play a part and contribute to the type of citizen they will grow up to be.

While extended families, neighbours, teachers, coaches, support and social groups, communities and church leaders take lead in these roles there are others who assist indirectly big time.

Nothing feels better than being proud of your children for their accomplishments in life, whether they learn those skills from you or from others in their life.

We all want to have disciplined, honest, hardworking, dependable and disciplined children to mention some attributes.

For students living in urban centres, municipality workers need to be commended for their role in hastening them to their respective buses that by 8am in the mornings and by 4pm in the afternoons not a sight of one is around the bus stands.

This eliminates truancy, loitering, late arrivals and school rivalries that may lead to fighting.

In helping raise a child, council workers now have one or two extra tasks listed on their job descriptions.

Their JD now includes directing students to their respective bus bays while over the intercom a member of the staff reminds students to get moving to theirs.

There needs to be consistent information sharing among stakeholders, education partners and schools to keep track of the number of freebie beneficiaries, school attendance and the child’s academic performance.

Government has been giving free bus fare since 2009 and free education since 2013.

Though this is free there still need to be some accountability, transparency and positive returns and repercussions.

When a child is well educated, the family can alleviate from poverty.

Society and living status are upgraded.

There needs to be a change in the mindset and policies must be reviewed periodically.

Parents and guardians need to be taken to task if their children are regular latecomers, absentees or fail to perform academically.

It has been 12 years since Government has been giving free bus fare, it is about time this is reviewed.

A review can bring out a lot of learning and opportunities for improvement.

One of the obvious are students tapping their purple bus cards for free entry into buses, a good number catch two buses to get to school when they can catch only one bus to get to the school within their vicinity.

Data and information should be shared and made accessible to assist those benefitting from the freebie, stakeholders and partners to access whether the freebie is achieving its long list of intentions.

After all we are part of a village and we should play our part in holistically raising a child.

Feedback: karalaini.waqanidrola@fijisun.com.fj