Consultation on Effective Drug Education for Schools

The Ministry of Youth Development is seeking feedback on a draft handbook about school-based drug education.

The draft handbook, called Strengthening Effective Drug Education in Schools, stems from the Effective Drug Education (EDE) project led by the Ministry as part of the Government’s Action Plan on Alcohol and Illicit Drugs.

The purpose of the EDE project is to identify and encourage best practice for alcohol and drug education for young people, families and communities.

Last year the Ministry conducted a literature review of research to identify best practice in alcohol and drug education. The findings of the literature review were used in the development of this draft handbook for principals, teachers and drug education providers. The handbook is intended to guide the design, delivery, evaluation and purchase of drug education in schools.

Drug education occurs in schools as part of the national health and physical education curriculum. The draft handbook aims to strengthen the effectiveness of the curriculum-based approach to drug education. It will expand on the Ministry of Education’s drug education guidelines by providing information on programme evaluation and assessment of external providers.

Schools, drug education providers and interested people are invited to provide comments on the draft handbook to the Ministry by 31 March 2004. The final handbook will be published and distributed to all schools in September 2004.

The literature review and the draft handbook are now available on the Ministry of Youth Development website.

The Ministry of Youth Development is coordinating the EDE project with the Ministries of Education, Health and Justice and the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC). Hon Jim Anderton chairs the ministerial group overseeing implementation of the Action Plan.

© Scoop Media