Road traffic accidents have increased drastically in Sri Lanka recent past and the number of partial and total disabilities is also in increasing trend. Also, the number of deaths due to road traffic accidents is also in the rise.
Therefore, it has been decided that the awareness to minimize road traffic accidents should be started at the school level and accordingly the National Council for Road Safety, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transport and Highways and Ministry of Public Security have jointly planned to establish forums on road safety in every school.
Through this programme, various practical activities will be introduced at the grade level curriculum to give special knowledge about road safety to the school students, and this is planned to commence from 3rd April, 2024.
It is also planned to award medals to the students in order to create enthusiasm for these activities of the said forums, and this medal programme will be upgrade up to the Presidential medals status in future. A special feature of this program is that any President Medal winner will be exempted from the requirement of the written test when applying for a new driving license.
AS a part of this programme, it is expected to prepare teacher training programmes on road safety in the Faculties of Teacher Training as well. Further, necessary steps are to be taken in the future to introduce this programme to the pre-school level too.