Prime Minister Dr. Jafar Hassan has recently directed an expansion of the free school transport project in Jordan's southern Badia region to include 3,500 additional male and female students, effective from the start of the second semester. The move raises a central question: what does this expansion mean in practice, how might it affect students' access to education and their regularity of attendance, and what is required to ensure a lasting educational impact?
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Under the decision, the number of students benefiting from the scheme in the southern Badia region will rise from 9,000 to 12,500, with approximately 900 male and female teachers also covered.
Education experts say the expansion carries significant educational and developmental weight precisely because it addresses something that rarely occupies centre stage in discussions about education: a student's ability to reach school safely and consistently. They note that the increase from around 9,000 to 12,500 beneficiaries - alongside some 900 teachers - should not be read simply as a larger headcount. It is, they argue, a signal that the first phase revealed a genuine need for the service and succeeded in tackling part of the transport challenge facing students and families.
Speaking separately to Al Ghad, the experts said the expansion indicates that the first phase proved both effective and replicable. They stressed that the value of the step extends well beyond providing a vehicle: it addresses educational realities specific to schools in dispersed areas, promotes equal opportunity and educational equity, and gives students access to central schools with more comprehensive learning environments, facilities and equipment.
The experts noted that the absence of adequate transport in certain areas has made it harder for students to reach school and may be a contributing factor in absenteeism and dropout. Expanding free school transport, they said, moves toward guaranteeing students the right to reach school safely and regularly and to begin their school day under better conditions. Assessing the project's impact, they added, should go beyond counting beneficiaries to track indicators such as improvements in attendance and punctuality, student motivation, and the effect of transport on academic attainment, participation and engagement.
Educational expert Faisal Tayeh said the expansion carries important educational and developmental significance because it tackles a problem that does not always feature prominently in education debates: whether a student can reach school safely and regularly. He pointed out that having a school nearby is not the only measure of educational access, particularly in areas where communities are spread apart and where the nature of roads, distances and available transport vary widely.
Tayeh said the decision to increase the number of beneficiaries in the southern Badia region should not be read as a mere numerical rise. It is an indicator, he said, that the first phase identified a real need and managed to ease some of the transport difficulties faced by students and families. Moving from 9,000 to 12,500 beneficiaries represents an increase of roughly 39 percent in the beneficiary base, reflecting how widespread the need for school transport is in these areas.
He said the expansion demonstrates that the first phase succeeded and is scalable, adding that its impact can be measured by what students and families experience in terms of improved school regularity and attendance, reduced lateness and absenteeism, and a lighter daily transport burden on families - all of which support students' continued participation in education and reinforce school transport as a service with a genuine educational effect, not merely a logistical one.
Tayeh explained that transport problems in remote areas go beyond distance alone. They may involve the cost families bear, irregular or unreliable vehicles, difficulty reaching school in certain conditions, or students arriving late and missing the start of the school day. When these difficulties recur, their cumulative effect on attendance, regularity and benefit from schooling can be considerable. Providing free, organised and safe school transport can therefore remove one barrier for students and give them a more stable chance to reach school and benefit from it.
Tayeh said the project is directly linked to the concept of educational equity. A student in an urban area may have several options for getting to school, while a student in a remote area may have very few. Providing transport for students who face distance or limited mobility is not a privilege, he said, but a way of addressing the disparity in circumstances that shapes access to educational opportunity - and thereby promotes equity among students across the kingdom.
He noted that the first phase covered 61 public schools in the southern Badia region, making the expansion to 12,500 students a transition from proving the concept to building a more mature and sustainable operational system. He stressed that the priority should be the quality of the daily service delivered to students, not the number of buses.
On the requirements for the next phase, Tayeh said precise route planning is essential. Allocating buses should be based on accurate data covering student and school locations, beneficiary numbers, route lengths, journey times and road conditions, with those data reviewed regularly, so that expansion is data-driven rather than based on broad estimates.
Safety, he said, must be a core element of the project's design - especially with 12,500 students being transported. That means ensuring buses are roadworthy, drivers are competent and continuously trained, and that clear procedures govern students boarding and alighting, emergency response, and compliance with routes and timetables.
Tayeh noted that the project already includes electronic tracking systems and cameras, and that a smart application is planned to allow parents to follow their children's journeys and know when they will arrive. He stressed that the value of these tools depends on using the data they generate to monitor the service, inform decisions and address problems quickly.
He also emphasised the importance of the human element: drivers and bus assistants are dealing with students, not ordinary passengers, so training must go beyond driving skills to include appropriate conduct toward students, managing behaviour on the bus, emergency procedures, and handling health or behavioural situations - as well as respecting and protecting students. These programmes, he said, must continue and develop with every new phase of expansion.
Tayeh also called for a clear link between the bus, the school and the family - with the school monitoring the attendance of students using the service, families informed about their children's routes and arrival and departure times, the operator having a fast mechanism for responding to feedback, and the Ministry of Education and district education directorates holding clear indicators of service quality.
He stressed the importance of not treating school transport in isolation from school mapping. In some areas, he said, building a new school may be the better solution, while in areas with small, scattered communities, school transport may be more efficient and sustainable. That calls for a joined-up view covering school locations, student numbers, population growth, distances and the relative costs of building, operating and transporting.
Tayeh said the government's stated intention to extend the project later to central and northern regions offers an opportunity to build a national school transport model, adapted to the different characteristics of each area in terms of population density, distances, road networks and school distribution. He also underlined the importance of partnership with the private sector in implementing the project, with clear performance standards and measurable indicators covering service quality, safety, reliability, maintenance, beneficiary satisfaction and responsiveness to feedback. Sustainability, he said, means not only continued funding and operation but continued quality.
He added that the project has a social impact that extends beyond the student. Reducing transport costs for families and providing a safe, regular way to reach school ease part of the economic and organisational burden on households and support students' continued enrolment, particularly in areas with limited transport options. The first phase also created direct employment in the targeted governorates, adding a development dimension alongside the educational one.
Tayeh concluded that the addition of 3,500 students should not be seen as a numerical increase alone, but as an opportunity to ensure those students reach their schools safely, on time and regularly, remain enrolled, and benefit from the education and activities on offer. The expansion from 9,000 to 12,500, he said, signals the scale of need for the project, while its real impact will be measured by indicators of attendance, regularity, continuity and improved access to education - contributing to reducing the effect of distance as a barrier to students' educational opportunity.
Education expert Mohammad Abu Ammara said the expansion of the free school transport project is an important step in addressing one of the most prominent factors affecting students' ability to reach school and attend regularly, broadening the scheme's reach in ways that promote educational equal opportunity.
Abu Ammara said transport is among the factors that push some families - particularly outside Amman - to enrol their children in private schools, even though the quality of education in many public schools can match that of private schools. The difference in some cases, he said, comes down to the availability of school transport: private schools provide buses that take students from home to school safely and comfortably, while families of public school students in various areas have to rely on walking or public transport, with the risks and difficulties that can bring.
He added that the lack of adequate transport in some areas has contributed to difficulties students face in reaching school, and may be a factor in absenteeism and dropout - making the expansion of free school transport a step toward guaranteeing students the right to reach school safely and regularly and to begin their school day under better conditions.
He noted that travel conditions have changed compared with previous generations, given higher traffic volumes in cities, road hazards in some areas, and weather conditions in both summer and winter, all of which make walking long distances harder - especially for children - and underline the importance of safe, organised school transport.
Abu Ammara said measuring the project's impact should draw on a range of indicators beyond the number of beneficiaries, including improvements in attendance and punctuality, student motivation, and the effect of transport on academic attainment, engagement and participation in school life - giving a fuller picture of what the project achieves.
He said the project's sustainability requires a phased plan spanning four or five years, with the number of buses and beneficiaries growing annually in line with actual needs.
Abu Ammara called for the free school transport project to continue and expand, with expansion tied to clear measurement of its effect on student regularity, stability and the quality of their educational experience.
Education expert Ayesh Al-Nawayseh said the expansion builds on a project that began at the start of the current academic year and widens access to it, particularly in remote areas and the southern Badia region, where reaching schools presents real challenges.
Al-Nawayseh said the importance of this step extends beyond providing transport. It addresses educational realities linked to the situation of schools in dispersed areas, reinforces equal opportunity and educational equity among students, and gives them access to central schools with more comprehensive learning environments, facilities and equipment.
He noted that some remote schools rely on combined-grade classrooms, which creates challenges for teachers in allocating sufficient time to each group, completing the curriculum and carrying out educational activities. Facilities such as laboratories, libraries, sports halls and playgrounds are also more limited in remote schools than in central ones.
Transporting students to better-equipped schools, he said, can give them access to improved learning environments - including digital and technology-based ones - and can contribute to their educational and psychological stability, reduce absenteeism and dropout, and ease the financial burden on families who currently bear the cost of getting their children to school.
Al-Nawayseh said the project is particularly important in supporting girls' continued education in remote areas, especially where there are no upper-grade schools close to where they live. Safe school transport can facilitate their access to schools and strengthen families' ability to keep them in education.
He stressed that a successful expansion requires careful planning of transport routes and beneficiary numbers, guaranteed bus safety and reliability, and measurement of the project's impact on attendance, absenteeism, dropout and academic attainment - to ensure that growing the number of beneficiaries translates into a tangible and lasting educational effect.
The expansion decision follows a government evaluation of the first phase, which launched in southern Badia schools at the start of the current academic year. The project has helped ease transport difficulties for many students and reduce the burden on them and their families by providing fully integrated, free school transport at no cost to the student.
The government began implementing the project at the start of the current academic year in partnership with the private sector. The first phase covered 61 public schools in the southern Badia region using 120 buses.
In the next phase, a smart application for the free school transport scheme will be launched, enabling parents to track their children's journeys to and from school and know their arrival times. The application will be linked to the electronic tracking systems and cameras already installed in the buses.
As part of the expansion plan, the government intends to roll the scheme out to cover areas in central and northern Jordan.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad. It was translated into English with AI assistance and edited by Jordan News.
