About School Transport

School Transport – the Journey…from Good to Great

Getting Kiwi kids to school since 1895…

About one in seven of all compulsory school-aged students – over 100,000 – are eligible for some form of school transport assistance. The total budget for school transport assistance in 2016/17 is $187m in non-departmental and $4m in departmental budgets.

The Ministry currently contracts with approximately 75 transport companies to provide school transport assistance in the form of buses, specialist vehicles and ferries; and also directly funds some 400 schools to provide transport for their students. In total there are approximately 8,000 vehicle movements each day second only to Auckland Transport in daily domestic passenger movements.

To align with greater expectations of control and visibility, and ensure that we can offer a consistent nationwide service, the Ministry has decided that the administration and management of these contracts will be brought back in-house in July 2017, creating 15 new opportunities.

The Team

The existing School Transport team is a small vibrant team with a high work rate and passion for getting kids to and from school safely each day. They live and breathe the School Transport vision of ‘a safe, effective and efficient school transport system that is valued by school communities’ under the age old adage of ‘work hard play hard’.

There is plenty of laughter in our open-plan office environment in Wellington and an opportunity for all-comers to bring their subject matter expertise to the daily quiz. Regular team meetings ensure our regional teams are kept up to date and remain part of the team.

This is a vibrant team that dares to think big and backs itself to succeed. In this team everyone has a voice and is committed to ensuring that the barriers to education that are created through distances to travel are overcome, balancing the policy and regulatory framework with meeting real needs.

Required Experience

You don’t have to be an expert in transport or buses, because we have experts in that field already, but what we do want is a willingness to get involved, a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude, great people skills and excited to be part of a new team that is assisting children achieve their educational potential.