The National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV) warns of the lack of school drivers for the start of the 2022 school year, in all regions of France.
According to the National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV), there will be a shortage of 8,000 school bus drivers everywhere in France, for the start of the school year in September 2022. Thousands of school children (one child in five according to the federation) could therefore be deprived of school buses, knowing that 2 million students are taken to school every day. “It is estimated that we will miss at the start of the school year between 7,000 and 8,000 drivers. This situation is even more worrying than it could be last year. It is going to lead us, it must be said, and we are alerting the transport authorities, the public authorities and the families at the same time, to not being able to provide a large number of school services in all French territories“, said the president of the federation Jean-Sébastien Barrault, this Thursday, June 9 on RMC. According to him, all regions are affected this year by the lack of drivers. “We had already had difficulties at the previous school year, especially in the PACA region and the Grand-Est region, but today all regions are concerned”he added.
Where does this shortage of school drivers come from?
Mainly from the health crisis. Indeed, with the Covid-19 epidemic, and the closures of classes and schools, many professionals have decided to retrain by choosing a profession less affected by the crisis. “Our profession has been particularly affected by the health crisis. And we have a certain number of drivers who preferred to stop to leave for other sectors”, specifies the president of the federation. In addition, it is sometimes difficult to recruit in a sector that only hires part-time (mornings and evenings to accompany and collect children from school). To compensate for the lack of school drivers, the FNTV suggests reviewing public contracts, so that drivers can take charge of several schools, in order to increase their working hours in the morning, for example. D license training is also organized in certain regions, such as in Occitanie, in order to recruit more candidates.