A total of 181 OR Tambo District youth are now benefiting in the newly-introduced standardised learner driver training programme pilot project, which is targeting schools, Further Education and Training (FET) colleges and universities with the aim of enforcing high quality driver education.
This number exceeds the 150, which was pronounced by Transport MEC Thandiswa Marawu through her policy speech last month.
The project is a collaboration between National and Provincial Departments of Transport, Department of Basic Education as part of the South African Decade of Action for Road Safety Campaign 2011 to 2020.
The Eastern Cape is one of the four provinces identified for the piloting of this project. The project is being piloted in OR Tambo district with 181 learners from different institutions (25 learners from Holomisa SSS, 25 learners from Ikhwezi Skill centre, 25 learners from St Johns College, 50 learners from King Sabatha Dalindyebo FET college, 50 learners from Walter Sisulu University (WSU) and six learners from Efata school from the Deaf and Blind).
The stages of the project are as follows :
- Confirmation of the Institute
- Recruitment of Learners
- Students to sign the Commitment Agreement
- Installation of the Interactive Driver Education System (iDES), signing of the test plan ad also registration of students .
- Learner Licence training (Induction and four hours contact classes)
- Learner Licence training (12-24 hours self study at school)
- Simulated Learners Assessment
- Learners Assessment at the Driving Licence Testing Centre
The senior secondary schools go up to this level but with the tertiary they proceed to the next level which goes as follows:
- Student recruitment
- K53 theoretical modules
- Installation of vSIM C100 to computers
- Simulator training (15 lessons)
- Driving lessons by the Driving school ( 10 lessons)
- Simulated Drivers Assessment test (1 hour)
- Driving test at the Driver and Learner Testing Centres
Some of the projects’ achievements, to name a few, was the good working relation with the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) Municipality in securing booking dates for the learners licence tests, and four out of the six centres that participated in the pilot project went through the learners licence test with 63% passing rate.
The other group will write their learners licence from 5 to 6 May and from there the project will take only WSU and KSD learners who have passed learners licence to the driving lessons and tests.
