By Marina Cameron
In yet another attempt to treat the symptoms rather than causes of the current crisis in schools, Adelaide principals have canvassed the introduction of sniffer dogs into high schools to detect drugs.
In response to worries about drug trade in schools, and the rise in violence between students and teachers, other measures under consideration in NSW include armed guards, security fences and surveillance cameras.
A school in Melbourne has already introduced video cameras in school toilets. In the US, schools have resorted to military-style security measures, including metal detectors at every entrance.
Not only will these measures infringe on the civil rights of students, but they avoid addressing the link between drug use and violence in schools and government under-funding, the lack of meaningful jobs and inadequate access to higher education for young people.
Drug use is undoubtedly a problem, but state and federal governments have done little to tackle it — witness the federal government's recent decision not to allow the ACT heroin trial.
Drug use and the drug trade grow alongside poverty, alienation and despair. Schools cannot be quarantined from the more general social crisis, and are especially affected by cuts to education, job training and the welfare state.
Funding to public schools has taken a nosedive under the Liberals, particularly affecting schools in disadvantaged areas. Unemployment levels that show no sign of improvement, increasing fees for higher education and falling welfare payments all limit young people's life choices. Growing social violence will inevitably spill over into higher levels of physical violence in schools.
While teachers may be first in the firing line, most of the measures being proposed are more about policing students than protecting teachers. The Australian Education Union argues that there needs to be greater funding to schools. The union is also critical of the common youth allowance, to be introduced in July, which cuts unemployment benefits for 16- and 17-year-olds.
Up to 27,000 young people will be cut off the dole and forced back into full-time study. While this will improve the youth unemployment figures, it fails to tackle the main problem — the lack of jobs. Young people will simply hit the depressed labour market a few years later than before, and the tension in many schools will be exacerbated.
Former minister for schools David Kemp was forced to request extra funding for the schools budget when the CYA was announced. However, it is unclear whether this will be provided and how it will be spent. Kemp stated that the money would go towards programs to help students forced back into school, who he classified as "least able", to maintain their motivation "while minimising any disruption they may cause to other students".
The government has created the problem, and policing the results will only make things worse.