Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome
chairs a budget meeting with Koh Larn Principal Yupaporn Pitiworn and
education officials.
Pratchaya Kerdthong
Left out of a new city program that provides free school
bus service to other Pattaya public schools, Koh Larn’s Pattaya School No.
10 may be given bicycles to help kids to class instead.
Principal Yupaporn Pitiworn appealed to Mayor Itthiphol
Kunplome and education officials at a May 26 meeting at the island school to
provide funds that will allow School No. 10 to buy 100 bikes they can let
students borrow. It’s the least the city can do, she said, since buses were
given to the city’s 10 other schools.
Itthiphol asked the principal to survey students to
determine specific demand for bicycles and the city would consider the
budget request.
School No. 10 teachers and parents indeed feel slighted
by the city, which continually provides more funding and support to larger
mainland facilities. Yupaporn noted the Koh Larn school, with just 471
students, routinely gets fewer funds for books, computers and supplies. But,
she added, students on Koh Larn have just as much trouble and expense
getting to class as peers elsewhere and she said she was appalled the city
didn’t provide Koh Larn a school bus as it did for others.
Pattaya began free school bus service to 10 area schools
last month, using air-conditioned coaches leased for five years. But, in
addition to Koh Larn’s gripes, the program has gotten off to a bumpy start
elsewhere.
Officials from other Pattaya schools said students were
disappointed the buses did not pick them up at home and that many still must
take public transport to get to a school-bus stop, thus lessening the
economic benefit to families.
Pattaya schools chief Tawatchai Rattanyu explained buses
cannot traverse Pattaya’s many tiny sois and that doing so would make it
impossible to pick up every child that needs service. He said the current
centralized bus stop grid would be reviewed and changed if needed.
