Saudi Aramco unveiled plans to expand the Traffic Safety Partnership Program, being implemented together with the Ministry of Education, to lower phases of school education in the Eastern Province. Sultan Al-Zahrani, director of the traffic safety program at Saudi Aramco, said that more than 700,000 boys and girls from all phases of school education in the region would benefit from a training program focusing on the concept of safe driving and traffic safety rules conducted by Saudi Aramco, Al-Eqtisadiah daily reported. “At the outset, 80,000 students of lower classes, including KG, preparatory and elementary, will be provided with the training during the second half of the current academic year,” he said. While speaking to reporters about the preparations for the first traffic safety forum in the Eastern Province, scheduled to begin on Saturday, Al-Zahrani, who is also member of the higher committee for the forum, said that the new program was part of the permanent partnership between Saudi Aramco and the ministry. This cooperation was launched three years ago under the aegis of Prince Jalawi bin Abdul Aziz bin Musaed, Eastern Province deputy governor and head of the traffic safety committee in the region. “More than 45,000 secondary school students have already benefited from the training program on safe driving,” he said. Mahmoud Al-Deeri, assistant director general of the education department in the province, said his department would exert all efforts to make the project a success. “The department will make available of live transmission of various sessions of the forum at all schools in the region with the objective of inculcating a healthy traffic culture and values of traffic safety in the minds of the younger generation,” he added.