Tina Amanda
Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board has included drug education in its curriculum for basic education.
The chairman of the Board, Dr Fyneface Akah stated this in an interview with our correspondent Tina Amanda. According to him, drug education will serve as an instrument to inculcate positive behaviour in young people through teaching and learning.
Dr Akah opined that drug abuse among young ones today is not unconnected with the economic situation in the nation, stressing that many people take drugs as a means to escape from the pressure of failure and inactivity, which he said leads them to indulge in criminal activities.
He further explained that the pattern of streaming and developing the drug education curriculum should involve parents, teachers and every agent who drives education.
“I support the inclusion of drug education in the basic curriculum, but education policymakers should know that is not all about including drug education as a subject for students to read and pass in exams, it’s beyond classroom work.
Parent, teachers and every educator should be trained on drug abuse in order to be streamlined to the drug education curriculum for better performance and handling”
Dr Akah also urged education policymakers to review quality assurance process in evaluating and measuring students’ performance in WAEC and other external exams.
“There is a need to evaluate and review policies that are formulated for examinations performance. That a child failed a particular subject doesn’t mean that child has failed in all the subjects.
‘’A child fails maths or English in WACE and JAMB ,they declare mass failure, that same child is sent to Ghana or USA with six credit to study and he or she is admitted, so many factors can make a child fail a subject. The system that determines students performance is also faulty”
