Families have accused the Valencian regional government of jeopardising children’s access to education after school transport to Azorín School in Catral was withdrawn without warning.
Among those affected is 12-year-old Ema Vasileva Lyutkova, who has cerebral palsy and attends the school’s specialist unit for pupils with additional educational needs. Ema cannot walk or speak and communicates using an electronic device.
She has travelled by adapted minibus from Rojales to Catral since joining the school at the age of three. However, when she arrived at the bus stop for the first day of term, the vehicle failed to appear.
Parents had feared for several years that the service would be withdrawn. In May, the school’s Parents’ Association, management team and representatives from Catral Council wrote to the regional education ministry asking for the long-established route to be retained. They say their letter received no response.
Families believed the service was safe after the Generalitat announced in June that school transport contracts worth more than €12.5 million would cover 12 Vega Baja municipalities, including Catral. The regional government said the contracts would provide daily transport for 4,400 pupils and ensure equal access to education.
Parents now claim they were misled and denied the opportunity to organise protests before the new school year began.
Around 20 pupils and their families are believed to be affected. Some live in rural areas where walking to school involves long and potentially dangerous journeys along roads without pavements, cycle lanes or street lighting.
One mother, Noelia, said she faces a four-kilometre walk lasting almost an hour with her ten-year-old daughter and 11-month-old baby.
Transport routes normally require at least 15 eligible pupils, with students generally living more than three kilometres from their school. However, the rules allow exceptions where access is especially difficult.
The regional education ministry said Ema was the only eligible pupil travelling from Rojales and that the route did not meet the minimum requirements. Officials said she would instead receive individual transport assistance, allowing her to remain at the same school and in the same classroom.
Her mother, Dilyana Velinova Nikolova, argues that financial assistance does not provide a practical solution. Some families do not own a suitable vehicle, cannot fit school journeys around their working hours or have no accessible public transport available.
Parents are now demanding an immediate alternative, warning that withdrawing the service risks turning a guaranteed right to education into one that some vulnerable children cannot physically access.
