Road safety to figure in school curricula

As India maintains the dubious distinction of having one of the worst road safety records in the world, road safety is belatedly being set to be included in the school syllabus, but not as a ‘boring’ subject.

According to Nitin R Gokarn, joint secretary, ministry of road transport and highways, road safety is being related to all the subjects for Classes 8-12 as part of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus.

“It won’t be a boring chapter on road traffic rules, but related to science, civics, history. It will be incorporated as interesting snippets so that students keep it in their mind,” Gokarn said on the sidelines of an event here on Tuesday evening.

“The NCERT syllabus committee is fixing up the text. It will be very practical,” he said, adding that the core committee on the syllabus of the human resources ministry would take a final call.

He pointed out that there was a fatality every nine minutes due to road accidents in the country. “There are 5 lakh (500,000) accidents in the country every year and 1.4 lakh (140,000) deaths due to accidents. This works out to an accident every four minutes and a fatality every nine minutes,” he said.

The major proportion of accidents was from Tier-II cities, where people tend to break traffic rules more, he added.