To create awareness about road safety, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam, (Seba) has decided to highlight road safety rules on the cover page of textbooks of Class IX and X from the next academic session starting in January. The board has also planned to make road safety a part of the detailed syllabus very soon.
'It was necessary to educate our students on the road safety rules as they travel to school either by buses or walk down the streets which are very busy nowadays. We are hopeful that their attention will now be drawn towards the road safety rules first whenever they open the textbook,' Seba secretary Kamal Jyoti Gogoi told TOI on Monday.
Assam Road Safety Council recently urged the education authorities to make road safety a part of their syllabus in higher classes from the following academic session as a large number of students are victims of road accidents throughout the state.
Sources in the state transport department said the education department has already been asked to incorporate road safety as an integral part of syllabus in higher classes.
Road safety lessons were necessary to incorporate in the school textbooks as school buses and vehicles carrying school kids are frequently caught by traffic police for violating traffic norms.
'Several valuable lives have been lost in road accidents in the last few years. Many students have become victims of road accidents due to carelessness. The education department wants the students to know the road safety rules so that they can spread their knowledge among their family members and friends,' said a senior official of the education department.
Though road safety measures have already been included in the syllabus of elementary classes in the state, the Road Safety Council wants the education department to make road safety a part of the syllabus in higher classes of the schools affiliated to Seba.