Some 5,000 primary school children in Deqing county of Zheijiang province will get to go to school in a United States-style air-conditioned bus. Xu Junqian reports.

Like millions of other primary school students in the country, Qiu Luya, a fourth-grader in Deqing, Zhejiang province, is enjoying her two-month-long summer vacation and does not want it to end. But if there is one thing the 10-year-old girl is looking forward to in the new semester in September, it is the chrome yellow school bus she will take to and from school. Qiu will join nearly 5,000 other students in the small county, best known for its pristine mountains and bamboo forests, to hop on board the new, brightly colored school buses that they have so far been seen only in cartoon films and comic strips.

Since 2009, the education department of the county, home to some 500,000 people, has spent 20 million yuan ($3.13 million) as part of its Student Road Safety Project, to buy 79 air-conditioned school buses specially designed for children under 1.4 meters in height.

This is the first time a government agency has initiated such a project.

Featuring a glossy exterior and state-of-the-art technologies like GPS and automatic doors, each of the buses can carry 50 students and costs 400,000 yuan ($62,538). Fourteen of them are replicas of the American-style "long-nosed" types that combine the head of a truck and body of a bus.

"We went for the classic American-style school bus, as it is the most common, and has been proven to be the safest," says Gai Yulong, manager of the Yutong Bus Company, and maker of these new buses.

The buses were put into operation even before the vacation, when 44 of them began traversing the school route in the less than 1,000-square-km county.

Till these buses started, most students had to spend at least an hour by van, motorcycle, lorry, or just about anything on wheels, to get to school.

"We have a student who lives nearly 10 km away in a mountainous area," says Ni Yuxuan, principal of Moganshan Primary School, located in one of the county's most remote areas.

"Every morning, the student had to get up at 5, and walk through two caves to get here. And when he arrives, he is so exhausted, he falls asleep," Ni says.

"Essentially, we want to ensure that when children arrive in school, they can focus on what they are supposed to do," says Luo Yongchang, director of the Education Bureau in Deqing, who introduced the project when he assumed office in 2009.

According to Luo, every student has to pay just 1 yuan (16 US cents) for a ride on what the children call "bumble bee" or "big yellow nose".

The bus fleet will be overseen by the government-funded Yong'an Company, established for the 79 buses and their drivers. By the end of September, all the buses will be on the road.

"We are not the first to think about running school buses, but we are the first to make it happen," Luo says.

Although some public schools in bigger cities have independently imported school buses, most had to abandon them for lack of money and experience.

"Our situation is quite different from that of bigger cities or other countries. Rather than traffic jams or crowded trains, the problem for students here is that they ride to school in any kind of vehicle," the official says. "It (having proper school buses) is not only a matter of saving time, but more importantly, about safety."

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that road accidents are the major killer of primary and secondary school students in China. Every year, on average, 18,000 students are killed in road accidents.

"I cannot say exactly to what extent accidents can be reduced. But I am confident our bus is well designed and tested thoroughly," Luo says.

The seat covers, for example, are fireproof, and the roof of the bus is rounded, not flat, which means that even when the bus is hit and turns turtle, those trapped inside will not be hurt.

The selection of drivers is also subject to stringent standards, he says. They must have at least three years of experience driving a bus, and have no record of drink driving. Neither the drivers nor their families should have any history of mental illness and they should be patient and kind.

Luo says many schools and policy makers in big cities are keen to follow his model.

"More than 50 cities and counties have come to me to learn about the school bus project," he says. "For most of them, especially big cities like Tianjin and Wuhan, having a school bus could help do away with the envy that some students feel for those who come to school by car."

The provincial capital, Hangzhou, half an hour's ride from Deqing, announced recently that for the coming semester, several schools downtown will run school buses for its students. And if it works well, it will be expanded to the whole city.

(China Daily 08/24/2011 page18)