Educating learners on road safety

Through the Bakwena Platinum Corridor Concessionaire, operator of the N1N4 highway, Total South Africa has donated Road Safety Cubes to eight primary schools along the route, to teach children the importance of road safety.

The Cube road-safety programme, an initiative of Total worldwide, involves using practical demonstrations and interactive sessions to educate young learners about road safety and create awareness of the road rules and signs. Bakwena is sponsoring all the training sessions and implementation activities.

“These educational aids are an innovative and practical means of enabling teachers to coach Grade 4 students on the basics of road safety in a classroom environment,” explains Bakwena’s commercial manager, Liam Clarke.

“Each Cube contains a workbook for each learner, as well as one for the teacher. The Cube also contains pieces of artificial road, which can be connected in different modes, together with miniature road signs that can be placed alongside the road according to how it was assembled.

“This enables learners to practise road safety using intersections, straight roads or situations about which they need to be aware. On completion of the course, each learner will receive a certificate, a reflective sticker for walking safely along roads and a set of coloured pencils.”

“To ensure the materials are accurate and in context, we had them assessed by the North West Departments of Road Safety and Education,” says Clarke.

Training has already been delivered to 16 teachers from eight primary schools, as well as road safety officers from the Bojanala District and Ngaka Modiri Molema. Training was extended to the Department of Education Safe Schools representatives from Rustenburg and Mahikeng. The Bakwena disaster team will also assist with the implementation of the project.

The project will climax with an inter-school quiz competition in October, as part of the Transport Month activities. The eight schools that will participate are: Leokeng Primary School, Seroophata Primary School, Majakaneng Primary School, Nkukime Primary School, St Catherine Primary School, Kgwanyape Primary School, Bapo Primary School and Segwetlhane Primary School.