As part of the government initiative to keep the students away from taking drugs, anti-narcotic committees have been formed at some 25,605 secondary and higher secondary educational institutions, across the country while the rest of the institutes will have the committees by this year.
“We have so far formed 25,605 anti-narcotic committees till June this year at the educational institutes such as school, college and madrasas aimed at making aware the students about dangerous effect of drugs, which ultimately appear as a silent killer,” Rabiul Islam, Deputy Director (preventive education) of Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) told BSS on Saturday morning.
The committees have been formed in 25,605 out of 32,057 secondary and higher secondary educational institutes across the country, he said, adding that the rest of educational institutes will have their committees by this year to spearhead a concerted anti-drug campaign.
The DNC is set to provide training to all of the convenors or member-sectaries of the committees to give them an overall idea about the adverse impact of the drug abuse and to make the committees effective, he said, adding that they are now preparing the module of the training.
The government took the move in 2009 with first forming 5,779 committees when the students were getting increasingly inclined towards taking drugs and similar narcotic substances.
The five-member committee is headed by chief of the concerned institution with its physical or religious teacher as the member secretary. Three other members of the committees are: a teachers’ representative, a guardian, and a student.
These committees usually hold their meetings once at the end of every month to discuss the darker sides of the abuse of drugs to keep them away from the menace.
Besides, each committee in collaboration with the respective district administration hold a broad-based discussion on the worst side of drugs and narcotics side by side with distributing anti-drug posters, leaflets, souvenirs, bulletins, brochures and booklets among the students.
Asked if there was any statistics on drug addicts at schools, the DNC official answered in the negative but said their findings suggested students in bigger cities were more exposed to drug addictions.
Available studies say more than five million people are drug addicts in the country with 80 percent of them aging between 15 and 35 years. Most of the victims are students.
