As the pandemic had kept students away from school for two years and parallelly, exposed them to the usage of internet, a few government teachers and parents of school students allege that substance abuse among young boys is on the rise and requires immediate intervention by the district authorities before it gets too late to reverse.
Speaking to TNIE, the best teacher awardee and a government school teacher from Villupuram, S Dilip said, "It is apparent that school students, especially boys, had been overly exposed to substance through various anti-social sources and the effects of it is evident in their behaviour on and off the school campus. We as teachers have little role to actually intervene as the issue goes beyond the school limit. However, if the higher secondary school students can be separated as Pre-University grades like in Karnataka, we could possibly prevent the influence of higher secondary students on lower classes."
Meanwhile, 45-years-old S Kamala (name changed) from KK Nagar in Villupuram whose son is a Class XI student at the nearest government higher secondary school, alleged, "I have tried my best to talk him out of these drug habits but it is only growing day by day. Social media apps like WhatsApp are enabling them to access groups where the substance is sold and they are instantly connected to the peddlers. He gets aggressive if I intervene more into this and taking it to the school teachers also doesn't feel right."
For parents like Kamala, who are clueless about how to confront the issue with their wards, local police and district administration's involvement would be a great relief.
District Collector D Mohan shared, "We are constantly tracking the addiction issue among school children and are taking every measure to curb it, in a discreet manner to prevent direct harm to the children. However, we will intensify our drive to churn out the practice from the district after a detailed investigation of the issue."
He further added that if parents are suffering from the issue, they can always approach the district administration for rehabilitation services for their wards.
Reacting to the issue, Superintendent N Sreenatha shared that the district police had set up special teams to monitor the illegal sales and arrest the culprits. "We had also started a drive to inspect shops in the neighbourhood of schools to ensure there is no mishap in terms of substance abuse of students," he said.
