A 10-year-old girl was forced to get off her school bus and walk 3km home alone on a rural Southland road.

Parents Michelle and Snow Cleaver said their daughters, Mikayla, 10, and Jessica Ballantyne, 13, catch the school bus from their farm, about 10 minutes north-east of Gore.

Michelle said her youngest daughter was told to get off the bus after the bus driver said she had not paid her fees.

Although Michelle admits she was behind in paying the bus company for Mikayla's bus rides, she said the bus driver should not have forced her daughter off.

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Ritchies Transport Holdings Ltd national school transport manager Jack Bowman says Ritchies Transport Holdings regrets the incident and apologises to the parents and the family but must make clear that "this pupil is not eligible to use this service and can only do so as a fare-paying passenger".

"After 15 days of non-payment the decision was made by local management not to carry the pupil, and the parent was advised by phone of this decision," Bowman said.

"The decision to instruct the driver not to allow the student to board the bus and leave her was made in very poor judgement by local management and this is being looked in to by senior management who will ensure correct procedures are followed in the future."

When Michelle called the bus depot manager on Tuesday to discuss what had happened, he was unable to tell her how much she owed, and refused to send her an invoice, she said.

"They left a 10-year-old kid in the freezing cold, kilometres from home, with nobody with her, in tears, frightened as the bus drove away.

Michelle said the manager told her the fact her child was left alone on the side of the road was not his problem.

"Legally he's right, but morally and ethically ..."

When the family first moved to the farm, Michelle had to pay for both girls to get the bus to West Gore School, because they didn't qualify for Ministry of Education funded transport.

To be eligible, students must be attending the closest school to their home address, but the closest school to the farm was Pukerau School, and Cleaver did not want to change the girls' school.

Jessica is now attending Longford Intermediate, and so now qualifies for the subsidy, but Mikayla still attends West Gore School.

That means that Michelle has to pay $2 per trip for her to ride the bus.

"The kids got on the bus and the bus driver made my 10-year-old daughter get back off again.

"My 13-year-old daughter tried to get back off the bus to be with her younger sister but the bus driver shut the door and kept her in."

​Michelle said the bus driver had verbally given her warnings that Mikayla's rides had run out during the two weeks prior to Mondays incident, but no ultimatums had been given.

"The bus company ... they don't have an eftpos machine, they don't send out invoices, I don't even know how much I owe.

"You've got to go physically into the bus depot and pay cash, and they put tickets aside and give them to the bus driver. I don't know I'm overdue until the bus driver gestures angrily and says you're overdue.

"I clean forgot to go round to the bus depot. I was feeling really guilty because it was my actions that lead to Mikayla having to have that trauma."

Because Michelle is working in Alexandra between Monday and Wednesday, Snow will be taking the children to school until she will be able to get to Gore on Thursday to pay the bill.

Ministry of Education infrastructure service spokeswoman Kim Shannon said she was concerned to hear that a child might have been left on the side of the road and was following up with the bus company.

"Students are eligible for school transport if distance makes it hard for them to get to the closest school at which they can enrol, and they don't have access to public transport. In this case, the younger child is not attending her nearest school.

"We only fund the bus company to transport students who are eligible for school transport assistance. We do allow bus companies to make private arrangements with caregivers to transport ineligible students if the affected schools agree, the students pay a fare and no eligible student is disadvantaged, for example they have a seat on the bus. It is the bus operator's decision whether or not to transport ineligible students and we are not party to these private arrangements.

"For safety reasons, we don't recommend caregivers leave young children unsupervised on the side of the road."