The Education Minister has welcomed government's decision to pay for students’ bus fares, as it will assist those families in need of financial assistance for bus fares.

Filipe Bole said the decision by government is an important one as it will help in its efforts to provide free compulsory education to all students in Fiji.

He added the Ministry is now working with all its machinery to gather information from schools in order to start paying for bus fares to all students who travel by bus to schools from next Wednesday.

Bole said it will now be the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children come to school every day, adding absenteeism would now have to be closely monitored by schools, with regular reports submitted on students attendance, especially for day schools, where students travel by bus to school.

Meanwhile, the Senior Education Officer Suva is calling on all heads of schools to submit the number of students that travel by school bus on a daily basis as soon as possible, adding their office will be open tomorrow for school heads to submit the numbers.