THEY say that if you can remember the Sixties you weren’t there and it seems something similar can be said of school lessons on drugs.
The Times Educational Supplement (August 1) says that a study based on interviews with 10,000 pupils found that a third had no memory of drugs education.
Under the national curriculum, children are taught the perils of smoking and drug-taking from the age of five. But the study, commissioned by the Department of Health, found that it “cannot be inferred that lessons lead to lower rates of smoking or drug use”.
Another study designed to get to the bottom of an important issue was reported in the Daily Mirror (August 1). Five universities have been awarded £200,000 in government grants to work on a two-year research project investigating city centre toilets.
One facility that may not be around long enough for them to visit is a traditional brick-built loo in Harborne High Street, which Birmingham City Council plans to demolish and replace with a “superloo”.
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Local Government Chronicle (August 1) reports that the proposal has met with outrage, but the council is adamant that the men-only urinal does not fit with its equality policy.