THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With schools set for re-opening on Thursday Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has vowed to take strong measures to prevent drugs from reaching campuses. Terming the drug abuse a grave problem that has affected the schools of even rural areas, Pinarayi said efforts should be made to destroy the distribution network of powerful drug mafia. He convened a high-level meeting on Monday to prepare guidelines that focuses on correcting students rather than punishing them for drug abuse. The highlight of the set of guidelines was the proposal to appoint teachers as mentors of students. A group of 5 to 10 students shall have a mentor to discuss the issues.
“Counsellors should give guidelines to children and parents should be informed of the problem. Only those with severe addiction problem should be sent to drug de-addiction centres,” said a statement from Chief Minister’s Office. The Chief Minister said there should be programmes for the rehabilitation of school drop-outs with drug problem as it was important to bring them back to the mainstream. The meeting discussed ways to use enforcement agencies to prevent drug trafficking through borders.
Services of Janamaithri police should be used to check drug mafia. The meeting discussed ways to create awareness through school textbooks and decided to form joint action committee consisting of officers of police, excise, health, education and information and public relations on anti-drug campaign. Secretary of General Education A Shajahan said complaint boxes would be kept in school to report drug-related issues.
An interactive session with parents and students would be held every month using the smart facilities in schools, he said. There were 12,000 cases related to drug registered in the state last year.
