About 250 children from 15 cities and provinces nationwide took part in the National Traffic Safety Contest for Primary School Pupils in HCM City on April 2-3. The teams were selected from local contests that had a total participation of 4,000 pupils.

"Traffic safety education is considered to be the most important, urgent issue for the education sector," said Tran Quang Quy, Deputy Minister of Education and Training.

The contest consisted of four main parts, including traffic safety knowledge, drawing pictures, performing role plays and composing poems, and writing and performing folk songs with new lyrics.

Interesting games related to traffic safety and other activities were created to create a fun, joyful learning atmosphere.

The contest is part of the Toyota and I Learn About Traffic (TSEP) programme, organised by Toyota Vietnam Foundation (TVF) in cooperation with the MinistryTraffic Safety Committee of Education and Training (MOET) and the National Traffic Safety Committee

TSEP has been implemented since the school year 2005-2006. It provides teacher manuals and teaching materials on traffic safety for teachers and pupils in all primary schools.

Role plays are performed and seminars are organised for teachers and education officers to introduce TSEP and explain its deeper social impact.

After five years of implementation, the programme has provided more than 7.5 million traffic-safety publications to first graders over the past five years since 2005.

It freely distributed 82,000 VCDs and 82,000 guidebooks to teach traffic safety to elementary teachers, and 32 seminars for 5,000 key managers and teachers.

Around 20 provincial traffic safety contests, with a total of 10,000 pupils and three national contests for 7,000 elementary students, were organised.

Ten provinces have performed hand puppet shows in 700 primary schools before 427,000 students.

"In order to reach the Government's target of preventing bad traffic accidents, we must mobilise all social resources and political organisations as well as individuals. Toyota Vietnam Foundation is the pioneer in traffic safety education with new ideas and methods," said Than Van Thanh, Deputy Head of National Traffic Safety Committee. /.