BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
In an effort to curb road fatalities, the Northern Cape Department of Transport, Safety and Liaison is joining the rest of the country in intensifying road safety education by involving schools with duo Road Safety Competitions in Upington.  

The province will be hosting the Provincial Road Safety debate and Participatory Educational Technique (PET) competitions. 

The Acting Head of Department, Lesego Wolfe said that the annually competition is stimulating as the youth get an opportunity to get into robust debates and demonstrate their creativity in relations to challenges and solutions around Road Safety. 

“This is relevant seeing that the country has committed into curbing road fatalities by half, come 2020, as part of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 aimed at stabilizing and reducing global road deaths by 2020,” Wolfe said.

“The Road Safety Debate will see learners from across the province actively debating Road Safety issues while the PET competition allow learners an opportunity to research and identify road traffic safety problems in their community and find solutions to the problems. 

“They get an opportunity to demonstrate their research by building models reflecting the challenges and solutions and make presentations on them,” Wolfe further elaborated. 

The annual competitions give a platform of expression to grade 10 and 11 learners from across the province.
 
The competitions start with regional competition with winners proceeding to the provincial leg and provincial winners proceeding to National competition to represent the province later in October.
 
The main objectives of the Debates and PET Competition are to:
∙Empower learners with road safety knowledge by undertaking research on road safety topics.

∙Enhance learner’s public speaking, critical and analytical thinking skills as they respond to points of information (Point of Information (POI)).

∙Encourage learners to work as a team and also define their roles as a collective.

∙Improves listening skills of learners especially in the rebuttal phase of the competition.

∙Encourage learners to become responsible road users as future adults.

∙Inculcates accountability, versatility and discipline in learners. 

The Road Safety debate and PET will be held on Saturday in Upington on the 19th September 2015.
-TDN
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