Honourable Minister of Transport, Mr Ben Martins,
Our officials from DBE and Transport,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Honourable Minister, thank you very much for inviting me to this important ceremony – the handover of the Torch of Peace. It is encouraging to receive the symbolic torch at a critical time when government is hard at work to reduce the number of precious lives we lose on our roads.
Encouraging also is the fact that many of our people are getting literate, a fact that I believe favours the overall effort to raise awareness around this important matter of safety. To the growing number of educated and enlightened South Africans, the basic education system has in 2012 added 377 829 learners, out of 511 152 learners, who passed matric.
Minister Martins, you were right to say most road fatalities are caused by irresponsible human behaviour, accounting for 82.2 percent of deaths on the country’s roads during the 2010 and 2011 festive seasons. I agree with you that this fact highlights the need to educate communities about road safety.
The Torch of Peace has evolved to represent a rallying call for the creation of a more caring, humane and safer South Africa. Accordingly, I would like to commend the Transport Ministry and Department for the energy and effort expended towards the broader campaign of making our roads safer.
The Make Roads Safe Campaign is making a difference in our lives. Most importantly, it is aligned to the United Nation’s Decade of Action against Road Deaths. However, let’s be reminded that road safety is our collective responsibility. It should not be seen as a task of the Transport Department alone.
As Basic Education, we are in partnership with Transport to step-up provision of scholar patrols in our schools. The partnership involves key stakeholders and we have committed to safer school transport for learners across the country.
We appeal to parents and all guardians to consider the types of cars they allow their children to be ferried-in. There’s no point in crying foul, saying schools don’t care, when we watch every morning our children being shoved into ‘smoking’ and steaming ‘bakkies’, at times packed to the roof.
The Free Online Dictionary defines a bakkie as a “small truck,” and, surely, a “truck” cannot pass the safer scholar transport test.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Torch of Peace should at all times remind us of the importance of school safety and of the benefits of acting responsibly.
Learning in a safer and child-friendly environment will boost learner confidence, and thus help improve learning outcomes. Such a climate will help us prepare learners to be responsible, law-abiding citizens in the future.
I want to make a special plea to all parents, caregivers and teachers to inculcate positive values of respect, honesty and responsibility in the young. We, as adults, are role models for future generations, and should act as such.
Children learn more from our actions rather than from what we say. A child accustomed to a parent who buckles up before driving, will take no excuse for any other driver who doesn’t put on a seat belt.
Children will know their rights and responsibilities to the extent that we teach them to do so and to the extent that we create a climate that is conducive for learning and growing. Our national curriculum includes the importance of rights and responsibilities. We all must understand that freedom and rights come with corresponding responsibilities.
We all need to put our heads together to strengthen relations between schools, communities and our local South African Police Services (SAPS) to reduce violence in our schools and our communities.
This torch is a symbol of hope. It reflects government’s resolve to instil a strong sense of humanity, to preserve lives and to eliminate violence and crime in all their forms. In 2013, we will use the Torch of Peace campaign to support the road safety programme, by implementing awareness programmes on road safety.
We should work together as government, education stakeholders and partners, business and broader society, to reduce road fatalities.
The Torch of Peace brings to mind memories of all those in and outside education that have fallen victim to crime and violence. We will reflect on the impact of existing programmes for building safer schools and fighting gender-based violence and sexual harassment.
To round up, in March 2013, Basic Education will hand the torch over to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to mark Human Rights Day. I invite all to join us in our quest to raise awareness and to sign the Decade of Action for Road Safety pledge.
Working together we can do more to create safer roads and safer communities.
I thank you!
