Should AISG Have a Bus for Dongguan Students?

27 students, 2 minivans, and an hour-and-half ride to and from Dongguan everyday in order to get to school. This transportation issue has existed for a long time, and many Dongguan students continue to find inconvenient problems related to the distance, price, transportation scheduling, etc. Many of these problems stem from the fact that the Dongguan bus is not an AISG bus: it is hired by Dongguan students, meaning that it is not part of the school’s relatively well-organized bus system. Both the Dongguan students/parents and the AISG board have obvious reasons and justifications on whether or not Dongguan students should have an AISG bus, but there is much more to this two-sided debate.

A major problem is the pricing of the rides from Dongguan. Many students without a hired driver have trouble getting to Guangzhou during the weekends, and unless someone else is willing to drive the student, parents have to hire a 200-400 RMB car for one ride. Freshman Borui C, who has been riding the Dongguan van for three years, explained the cheapest but time-consuming way he overcomes this distance barrier: “I take public transportation to get to Guangzhou if I don’t have a car. It takes up to around 4 hours compared to car rides, which are usually about an hour. It’s not very convenient but it’s the cheapest way to hang out with friends in Guangzhou during the weekends.”

Some students have also complained about their transportation rights at AISG, which is, more or less, an interesting argument. During the weekdays, some DG students have to go to friends’ houses or places in Guangzhou, but DG students are not allowed to ride the AISG school buses to go to different locations because they don’t pay for the school’s bus transportation. This argument is reasonable on the school board’s behalf, but it increases the inconvenience for the students. Although high school students could easily get a taxi, a majority of the DG students also include middle schoolers. This issue is taken further when parents worry about safety, pricing, location, and the usual list of things that promote parental anxiety.

Over time, there have been less proposals for a Dongguan bus, but that hasn’t stopped DG students from requesting more flexibility with the school’s bus system.

Ms. Ivy X, who is in charge of the buses in the management department at AISG, recently commented on the primary reason that they have rejected the Dongguan bus proposal: “We have considered this case. Because our bus company is from Guangzhou, if we send bus[es] from Guangzhou to Dongguan for the morning pick-up and [the] afternoon drop-off, the bus[es] needs [to come] back to Guangzhou. For the private vans that the students ride, each student has to pay 100 RMB per day. If we hire the bus from Guangzhou, the cost will be more than 100 RMB per person, per day. Maybe double. So we think that [this] is not workable and not reasonable.”

Ultimately, many people believe the solution to this Dongguan bus problem is for the DG students to quit complaining, get a driver, or simply move to live in Guangzhou. Due to the numerous factors that prevent DG students from overcoming the transportation barrier, this obviously cannot be done. But should the AISG board change their policy to allow DG students to ride the school buses occasionally? Should DG students be at a disadvantage because of long transportation problems?