RTO appeals universities to make road safety part of curriculum
PUNE To create road safety awareness among students and get them involved in the study, the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) has now sent a letter to several state and private universities in Pune district requesting to introduce special subjects as per the course structure related to road safety
PUNE To create road safety awareness among students and get them involved in the study, the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) has now sent a letter to several state and private universities in Pune district requesting to introduce special subjects as per the course structure related to road safety. RTO has asked to give choice-based credit system option to students by introducing subjects related to road safety.
“Every year around 1.5 lakh people die in the road accidents in our country and most of the fatal accidents are of people between 15 to 45 years.
Earlier, even the Supreme Court had instructed the University Grants Commission (UGC) to introduce new subjects of road safety. Some subjects are also being introduced in the National Service Scheme (NSS) syllabus,” said Sanjay Sasane, deputy regional transport officer.
“It is necessary for youngsters to get lessons of defensive driving, which is the need of the hour. Along with the basic road safety awareness and training programmes, it is now time to give students specific training in their area of interest. For instance, a student studying law, will have lessons on laws of driving licence, importance of intervention of vehicles legislation for road safety. While for engineering students’ topics on concept of traffic park, smart city and road safety will be given,” added Sasane.
In addition to adding these subjects to the syllabus, the RTO has also asked universities and colleges to start their own learning licence driving test centre within the college, where students will be taught basics of safe driving and road safety.
MM Salunkhe, vice-chancellor, Bharati Vidyapeeth university said, “It is a great initiative from the RTO officials and it will certainly create a sense of responsibility and new things will be learned by introducing such topics in various courses. We will be studying over the proposal and hopefully from next academic year we will introduce some of these subjects.”