THE ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION PROGRAMME: A JOURNEY INTO THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Road safety is of paramount importance to all governments worldwide. This is also the case in South Africa where the fatality rates on South African roads are very high. Every 48 minutes, a person is killed on these roads. There are different approaches that one can take to address this problem. One such an approach is to include a road safety education programme in the school curriculum. The purpose of this study was to investigate the implementation of a road safety education programme in five primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This was done by using a qualitative research methodology. The curriculum orientation for social adaptation and social reconstruction was used as a theoretical framework. Data was collected by means of a semi-structured questionnaire for teachers, classroom observations and questionnaires for learners. The findings suggested that the current approach to road safety education in schools can be improved through the adoption of a more concerted and coordinated approach. From the data it is evident that many schools do not see the importance of a road safety programme in the curriculum and schools implement such programmes at the discretion of the school management and if they can find space in their time table. Although this was a limited qualitative study it still has value for a wider audience because it provides us with valuable insights about the development and implementation of a road safety programme in a national school curriculum.