Road safety to be part of school curriculum

ROAD safety is to become part of the curriculum of all primary and elementary schools.
It follows the signing of an agreement to that effect between the Education Department and the National Road Safety Council.
Council executive director Nelson Terema said the agreement would allow for the department to develop a teachers’ resource book to help with the teaching of road safety.
Terema said traffic police reports showed there were almost 45 deaths per 10,000 vehicles in the country.
He said of these deaths, 20% were young boys and girls.
He said to address that, the council had taken vital steps through the effective enforcement of road user behaviour as well as through road safety and education,
“Education has a key role to play in improving child road safety.
“That could be done through improving knowledge and subsequently through changing behaviour,” Terema said.
He said the Vision 2050 did not specifically highlight road safety as an issue but the government’s medium term development plan 2011-2015 included the need to conduct road safety education.
Terema said without meaningful intervention such as the road safety education, the problem would worsen given the expected increase in motor vehicle ownership and population.
Education secretary Dr Musawe Sinebare said road safety education would reach 1.5 million children once implemented as part of the curriculum.
Sinebare said he was pleased with the partnership with the education department to educate children on road safety.
He said the idea was to shift the attention from the driver to the pedestrian.
“We need to train our children so that they don’t get hit by a car.”