North 24-Parganas mulls tobacco-free schools
Kolkata: Senior officials of School Education department of North 24-Parganas have taken a pledge to make all the schools under its jurisdiction tobacco-free.
To achieve this goal, teachers at various state government-aided schools would be sensitised about the ill-effects of tobacco and would be made aware about the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA)-2003 and its implementation at the school level.
The teachers would also be trained on how to promote tobacco-free educational institutes for preventing initiation of tobacco consumption among students and also to motivate the school staff, parents to say no to Tobacco.
The District Inspector of Schools in North 24-Parganas with the help of a private hospital organised a workshop for teachers at Prafullanagar Vidya Mandir in Habra in the same district to make the schools tobacco-free.
The teachers were trained on how to carry out awareness campaigns among students so that they do not pick up the habit of smoking or do not consume any tobacco products. Workshops would be carried out in various other schools by the School Education department.
There were more than 200 participants including headmasters/headmistresses and teachers from all secondary schools across two blocks namely Habra-I and Habra-II and two municipalities including Habra and Ashok Nagar-Kalyangarh of North 24 Parganas district.
It is to be mentioned that in West Bengal, around 2.3 crore of adults either smoke or use smokeless tobacco; 1.5 lakh people die every year due to tobacco related diseases in West Bengal and 438 children start consuming tobacco daily in the state. The participants were told about the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA). This Act prohibits smoking in public places, direct/indirect advertising and promotion, sale to/by minors, sale within 100 yards of schools and sale of tobacco-products without statutory warnings. All the participants took part in group exercises to generate ideas and strategies for promoting tobacco-free schools.
