Lessons on road safety in school syllabus soon

Following the accident at Nagarjuna circle on July 1, in which a car being driven by a drunk student toppled on another vehicle killing nine-year-old Ramya and two others, lessons on road safety are soon to be introduced in school curricula.
Hoping to hone students into become responsible future motorists, the Telangana police held a meeting with education officials and other stakeholders recently regarding inclusion of lessons on the subject in school textbooks.Following the meeting, a special committee was formed in this regard to prepare education material to be a part of social science textbooks in Telangana state schools.
While highlighting the need to spread awareness in society, city police commissioner M Mahender Reddy said, “We have to teach socially desirable things to youngsters in their formative years before an individual's personality crystallises. To this end, we, along with school education department, state council for education research and training (SCERT) and RTA have formed a committee with professionals from various fields to prepare traffic management and road safety learning modules under the supervision of SCERT to be included in textbooks.“
The committee comprises experts from traffic police, RTA, school principals, school education department officials. It has started preparing syllabus to be included in textbooks from class III to VIII. “From class III to class V, the chapter will contain basics of traffic management and road safety; and from VI to VIII, students will learn about advanced topics,“ traffic ACP P Jaipal, who is part of the committee, told TOI.
As part of the basic course, topics such as traffic signs, pedestrian crossings, zebra crossings, traffic signalling, necessity to fol low queue system while getting into a vehicle, traffic management at schools, necessity of a driving licence, use of helmet and seat belt, how to obtain a licence and importance of footpaths will be explained to students.
In advanced modules for high school students, topics such as good road safety practices, dangerous practices such as rash driving, signal jumping, wrong side driving, cell phone driving, wrong parking and drink driving will be explained with case studies, traffic DCP AV Ranganath told TOI.
The police is also planning to give out DVDs containing `nondisturbing' accident footage and simulated accident animated clips to schools as a part of the course.
Meanwhile, another committee comprising GHMC officials and educational experts was also formed to add another chapter about cleanliness and sanitation in the textbooks.
The new chapters will be included in the state government school syllabus from next academic. For this year, a special booklet containing the course material will be supplied to schools.