Coalition launched 4th Capacity Development session on Star Rating for Schools

Last Wednesday, February 24, the Coalition launched its fourth Capacity Development Session on an introduction to the Star Rating for Schools Program. The session was led by International Road Assessment Program – iRAP Star Rating for Schools Global Program Coordinator, Rafaela Machado, and Master Trainers; Alex Ayub from Kenya, Daniel Cano from Columbia, Minh Vo from Vietnam, and Shantel Jacobs from Belize. 

Every day more than 1000 young people die on the world’s roads, many of them are walking to school and killed while trying to get an education. This is unacceptable. To help reduce the number of road-related deaths and injuries, especially among students, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety teamed up with iRAP - International Road Assessment Program to develop the Youth Stars programme.

The Program, launched in 2019, trains young road safety leaders to assess and rate zones or roads around schools, universities, and other educational institutions. The SR4S program uses a central web application that collects and evaluates the data to give the user possible countermeasures to take depending on the roads they will use in their journey. 

“This function will allow you to estimate the number of stars and risks and allow you to find which appropriate countermeasure [you can use] for your location”

— Minh Vo

iRAP believes that improving the world’s roads to a 3-star or better standard is a key way to achieve SDG Target 3.6 – halving the number of road-related deaths and injuries by the year 2030. Star ratings are based on road inspection data and provide simple and objective measures of the level of safety which is “built-in” to the road for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. A road can be ranked from 1-star (lowest quality) to 5-star (highest quality). 

Rafaela talked about the program itself, the system, and web application to help in the process of data collection while the master trainers gave participating Coalition members basic details about what the star rating program does to improve road safety. Shantel discussed the important road safety attributes that the program takes into consideration, Alex presented the Star Rating for School Methodology, and Minh elaborated on how the SR4S software can be used to improve the world’s roads. The discussion and the session were facilitated by Daniel. 

Apart from talking about the program, the master trainers also shared their experience about what it was like learning about the SR4S program as Master Trainers. 

With the information presented during the session, participants were able to understand how infrastructure affects road safety, champion 3-star or more roads through advocacy, gain knowledge on practical safety measures, and understand how to call for roads that do not kill our dreams.

After the session, the Coalition offered a longer and more in-depth discussion on the star rating for schools program run by the master trainers. The session will empower members and help them understand and implement star rating for schools in their communities.

These opportunities are open for members of the Coalition only. So if you want to get the opportunity to join, sign up today!