Ms. Churairat Sangboonnum, the Deputy Permanent Secretary for education announced after a meeting with the Assistant Chief of the Royal Thai Police and the Deputy Secretary - General of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) and other selected MOE related staff that the Ministry of Education in cooperation with Bangkok Metropolitan Narcotics Control Office had initiated a project on the capacity building of model educational institutes in order to eradicate, prevent and solve drugs and narcotic problems in 59 schools which are located in Bangkok.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary stated that it was apparent from recent ONCB data that there are more than 700,000 drug addicts in Thai society and that this is a number that increases annually. In this regard, ONCB will introduce their problem prevention and solving approaches through the MOE Five Fences Policies. The Ministry will spearhead the campaign on narcotics problem solving in Thai educational institutes. The pilot project will start with schools which are located in the Bangkok Metropolitan area. These schools will be designated as role models in this project.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary added further details in relation to an academic seminar which had been conducted for the 59 schools in order to prepare an action plan on watching, preventing and solving drugs and narcotic problems in educational institutes. Moreover, the achievement of this project will be disseminated to a further 1,669 schools nationwide.
Moreover, the primary prevention and solving activities on drugs and narcotic problems will be conducted on July 11th, 2011 at Professor ML Pin Malakul Meting Room from 9.00 a.m. onwards. In this regard, the Permanent Secretary for Education will preside over the opening ceremony and then he will deliver his policies. Furthermore, the role models schools will ratify the prevention and solving of drugs and narcotic problems in theirs schools.