Mpumalanga’s debate team made it to the top two in the national road safety competition.
The national road safety competitions are an annual event organized and hosted by the Road Traffic Management Corporation where learners from all nine provinces between grades 8 to 11 are given an opportunity to talk about issues pertaining to road safety.
The competitions were held in Polokwane from 4-7 October and comprised of Debates and Participatory Educational Techniques (PET) under Urban and Rural Categories.Statistics show that many pedestrians are the victims of road crashes in South Africa and most of these victims are young people. It is therefore against this background that these debates are conducted to spark a debate among young people on issues pertaining road safety.
The PET is aimed at changing learners’ attitudes towards road safety by means of participatory education. It also encourages them to identify road safety challenges in their communities and to find solutions by way of research to the problems thereby providing them with a hands-on opportunity in resolving those challenges.The Road Safety Debate Competitions are an initiative of the Mpumalanga Province which started in 2004 with the aim of reducing road crashes. The province had since won the national debates three times, in the year 2007, 2010 and 2011.
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Ngomane said although the Mpumalanga teams did not win, it should not be about winning at all but about involving more young people on road safety initiatives.“These young people who represented us are fit to be ambassadors now and teach other young people, they are now well informed and have learnt more from other learners who come from other provinces more about road safety.These debates are beneficial to us as government because as much as they compete, they are learning about road safety which is one of government’s priority to educate people about safe road usage,” he said.
He added that the province will continue with road safety initiatives with the aim of educating more people to reduce road crashes and save lives.The five learners were awarded with smart cellular phones, trophies and medals.
Minister of Transport, Ms Dipuo Peters who delivered a keynote address, praised the learners and said they were all winners encouraging them to use the opportunity to instill the messages of road safety to other fellow young people.
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