Bus driver trainer Neil Rettie, has been seconded to Transaid for a further two years by Stagecoach and is heading up the Professional Driver Training Project as a Project Manager in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Neil, who has conducted bus driver training on behalf of Transaid in Zambia, is now based at the National Institute of Transport (NIT) in Tanzania and is responsible for helping to implement a new bus driver training curriculum in conjunction with the government and other relevant stakeholders.
Neil is also supporting the NIT to develop its capacity to deliver more practical bus driver training through the ‘training of trainers’ to ensure that they have the skills they need to deliver quality training and to encourage trainees to become safer and more efficient drivers. The project also includes the development of NIT’s engineering department through the delivery of vehicle inspection training and will expand to include HGV driver training in 2012.
In Tanzania, many drivers have little or no formal training and learn through friends or on the job, with most having only completed primary education. They have no understanding of basic rules of the road and legal enforcement is often lacking. Quality driver training schools are few and far between and the road worthiness of vehicles in another major factor that puts people’s lives at risk daily.
There are around 30,000 bus drivers in Tanzania and it is estimated that 80% of drivers are not in possession of an adequate licence. The NIT has been given the mandate by the Tanzanian government to re-train existing licence holders to ensure they have the necessary skills to do the job safely.
Transaid partnered with the NIT in June 2010, following on from the success of similar work in Zambia, and is supporting the development of quality commercial driver training to reduce the number of road deaths – said to be the third biggest premature killer following HIV/AIDS and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. This figure is set to rise to become the leading killer by 2020 if nothing is done to stop it.
The Professional Driver Training Project is one solution and is part of Transaid’s ongoing commitment to the UN Decade of Road Safety.
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