SCHOOL IS THE PLACE TO DEFEAT DRUG ABUSE

If we really are going to tackle the drug problem, we must review
radically the role of schools in our community. We certainly need to
spend public funds on something more than government public-relations
exercises.

There is some, but not much, drug-taking in schools. A greater
problem is the exchange of drugs at school between students, with
some acting as agents of outside dealers, usually older brothers,
friends or relatives. Most importantly, however, there is a
considerable amount of drug-taking outside school.

Schools bring young people together socially. They make their friends
at school and they plan and discuss their out-of-school activities at
school. Yet at so many schools the school's interest in the student,
its authority and acceptance of responsibility end at the school gate.

The cult of individualism has meant that the traditional influence of
institutions, such as the churches, boy scouts and even sporting
clubs, has waned. The school continues as an institution - often the
only institution - to which both parents and young people are
inevitably linked and which links them with one another.

Generally parents also hold the school in high regard.

If public funds were to be poured into training existing staff and
providing many more staff, including counselling and family
specialists, the school could take on the role of support to
individual parents and, in partnership with parents, the leadership
and supervision outside the school of students, who have been brought
together by the school in the first place.

Vastly more funds to the education system could be directed towards
providing co-curricular education outside conventional school hours,
through demanding sport, bush-adventure activities, drama and music,
which would then make available to every child opportunities to
succeed in activities they enjoy, to work and relate in a healthy way
with others, and to realise personal potential.

Schools are able to create a positive environment for their students
- - if their role is not seen as confined to the school day and to the
classroom.

Educational consultant Tony Hewison was headmaster of St Michael's
Grammar School from 1980 to 1999.