Every so often we get told that drug education doesn’t work, by which it is usually meant that it isn’t easy to tell if it changes young people’s behaviour.
Most of the people I talk to from the sector argue that this isn’t what it sets out to do, and it shouldn’t be judged against the same criteria as drug prevention initiatives. Rather drug education’s effectiveness should be judged on educational outcomes and on whether it impacts on risk and protective factors.
Either way the Drug Education Forum have been consistent in calling for investment in the evidence base for drug education. Which makes me certain we’ll welcome the creation of the Institute of Effective Education.
Writing in The Guardian Estelle Morris, who is chair of the strategy board for the new body, says:
The Institute will develop and evaluate new programmes and approaches to education, assemble a robust knowledge base, and make it publicly accessible. We shall work with schools, educators and policy makers, in the UK and throughout the world, to help them use evidence in making their decisions about education policy and practice. Our goal is to add substantially to the impact of evidence-based reform of pre-school through to secondary education.
My guess will be that other subject areas will get a lot more attention than drug education, but I’m sure there will be things we can learn and contribute to the Institute’s work.
In the meantime I’ll just point back to a few posts we have done on research around effectiveness:
- Pupil’s experiences and perspectives
- Everyone’s Not Doing It
- Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Drug Education in Scottish Schools
And two papers we’ve produced:
Filed under: educational theory , Institute of Effective Education
