Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said that compared to other parts of the island, school-going children in the densely populated city of Colombo are more at risk of facing traffic accidents. The Minister said this while addressing an event organized at the Ministry for the official launch of the ‘School Road Safety Club’.
Therefore, he said that urgent steps should be taken to change this tragic situation, and such road safety programs are a big help for that.
It is special that most of the urban traffic accidents occur within the jurisdiction of the Colombo Municipal Council. There are 144 schools in the Colombo region, of which 21 are national schools and another 20 schools belong to the international and private school category. The rest of the schools are under the Western Provincial Council.
“On an average, 196,000 children attend schools daily in the Colombo Municipality. These students come to school using various modes such as school bus service, school vans, tricycles and their own family’s private transport.
There is no discipline anywhere in our country. Therefore, we should start practicing discipline from school. In a country like Japan, discipline is practiced in pre-school grades. Our preschool systems are completely different. “We’re always trying to get them to read, write, and count, which is more taxing on their brains,” he said.