Pretoria, 27 March 2000
I am privileged to attend this meeting of the National Minister of Education and his provincial counterparts, MEC's for Education of the provinces. I thank my colleague, Minister Asmal, Minister of Education, for giving me this opportunity to address you. I thank the MEC's also. I should not abuse your hospitality. Let me therefore, firstly, wish you success in your own deliberations and now to apprise you immediately of the reason for my presence this morning.
I am here to appeal for your help in the area of promoting safety on our roads. Our country has a terrible record of road violence. How else can I describe the carnage on our roads which has seen so many people - men, women and children - killed, countless injured and hundreds of millions of rands of loss caused. I am not speaking of the occasional manifestation on road rage. I am referring to a major problem - bad driver behaviour, bad pedestrian behaviour and the refusal or failure on the part of road users to observe the elementary rules of the road.
As Minister of Transport, I have met with the MEC's for Transport of all the provinces. Together we have discussed the problem and are determined to take decisive steps to reduce the number of accidents on our roads. During the past holiday period, we embarked upon an intensive communication and law enforcement program (the Arrive Alive Campaign). The program was successful, in that, in many parts of the country, as a result of the implementation of the program, many road users headed the call to observe the rules of the road and to save lives. But sadly, whilst the number of accidents decreased, the number of fatalities has increased. Many passengers were killed or mained and many pedestrians suffered a similar fate. There were a total number of 915 crashes and 1 193 deaths during the period 1 December 1999 to 31 January 2000.
We had asked that six road safety commandments be observed:
If road users observe these rules, there would be a dramatic reduction in the number of accidents, deaths and serious injuries. The MEC's for Transport and I have looked at this problem and have embarked upon a process to develop a road traffic safety program for South Africa. Shortly, a discussion document will be made available for public discussion and hopefully as a result of interaction with role players, we will eventually be able to finalise a road safety program. We were always very clear that the Arrive Alive Campaign had a limited but important function namely to influence attitudes and behaviour of road users and to step up law enforcement. Good as this program has been, it is no substitute for a more comprehensive road safety program. It will remain an important element of the program, but the program will address a number of other important elements as well.
I mention this because, as part of this program we want to dramatically step up road safety education at schools and other educational institutions. I have come to ask you to help me so as to ensure that an effective road safety education program gets implemented at as many schools as possible throughout the country, if not at all the schools.
In many parts of the country, there have been some road safety education programs. The use of scholar patrols has also been useful. I believe however, that we must intervene - all of us - to incorporate road safety education programs wherever possible. I am sure that this will help to promote road safety and save lives.
I would like to thank the education sector for the progress already achieved. We are not starting from scratch. As you may all be aware, road traffic safety educational material is being developed in close co-operation with the Department of Education. A road traffic safety education team has sat on curriculum committees and Outcome Based Education (OBE) committees to help in material development for incorporation in education curricula.
The process of deciding what Specific Outcomes (SO's) would be relevant to each grade has taken some time, and only once final decisions were forthcoming from the Department of Education could we move forward.
The following activities have taken place:
STRENGTH OF OUR RELATIONSHIP
We have a very good working relationship with the Department of Education officials of the Department of Education have been of great assistance to us in helping us to understand the requirements of Curriculum 2005 the inclusion of road safety education in the Life Skills program has gone a long way in placing road safety education as one of the sine qua non in the physical development of the child the programs we are developing for road safety education are integrated with other subjects and thus making it easy for the teachers.
WEAKNESSES IN OUR RELATIONSHIP
We are unable to train all the teachers to offer our programs nationally because of scarcity of personnel in the transport departments not all schools are in possession of road safety education material for teaching the teacher training colleges do not as yet offer road safety education as one of the subjects scholar patrols are not done in the majority of schools in the black townships the working relations between provincial transport and education officers should be improved and strengthened there is no representative from both departments in the co-ordinating committees advertisement of the products and training opportunities should be widely implemented
RECOMMENDATION
Road Traffic Safety education should be included in the curriculum of student teachers at tertiary institutions all teachers in the field should be trained in road safety material some teachers should be seconded to help train other teachers in road safety material the two departments must work together to set up scholar patrol in black schools there must be representation in co-ordinating committees from both departments collaboration in the production of road safety education from Grade R to Grade 12 discussions between the departments on the development of a comprehensive road safety syllabus should take place soon provincial personnel from both departments should collaborate in the training of teachers the planning of the school calendar should involve the department of Transport there should be joint planning of important calendar periods that affect both department synergy should be reached with implementation of programmes via sponsorships and private initiative greater promotion of co-operative inter-departmental initiatives should be communicated and sought funding should be specifically designated for the implementation of materials to all schools
These are the matters which I thought I should raise with you because as the political heads of your respective departments, you can give decisive leadership so as to ensure that your departments do regard road safety education programs as important and are prepared to implement them.
Whilst we have received very good co-operation from the Education Department - National and Provincial, I want to appeal specifically for the educational material which we have developed in close co-operation with the education department to be specifically endorsed and that the material which is already available, be used. We will try to make more material available as quickly as possible.
As all of us can appreciate, all materials are not been distributed together. They are being distributed in tandem with the unfolding process of Outcome Based Education programs.
I want to draw special attention to the Adult Basic Education and Training. Road traffic education is very important for this sector, because they can form the basis for developing community based road traffic education programs as well. When I and my colleague meet again later this year, we will be looking at steps which can be taken to develop such programs.
I am convinced that if we can make Safety in Traffic Education Program (STEP) real and alive at all of our schools, it will make a dramatic impact upon the carnage on our roads. The net effect will be greater consciousness and sensitivity to rules of the road, greater compliance with the rules and in so doing, we will contribute to reversing the culture of road violence which currently exists and greater pedestrian safety.
May I ask you finally to work in co-operation with the MEC's for Transport in your provinces. I will ensure that I communicate with them as well so that we build up the kind of co-operation which must be one of the hallmarks of nation building in our country.
I thank you for your kind attention.