KEY POINTS:
The recent criticism from the Chief Review Officer, Graham Stoop, that many schools were not teaching sex education adequately is yet another example of schools being forced to become de facto-parents to students.
Principals and teachers are increasingly having to abandon geometry in favour of becoming the lunchbox police in classes, cast aside biology lessons in favour of lectures on the vast array of sexually transmitted diseases students may catch, and give up English classes to family group conferences on why knives, knuckle-dusters and hammers are not a good idea in school.
Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that parents were the primary educators of their children (at least that's the mantra we hear from the Ministry of Education); that talks on the "birds and the bees" were the responsibility and prerogative of parents.
If parents noticed their children getting tubby they would sign them up for a sport and cut down on the biscuits.
Back-chat and aggressive behaviour was met with removal of privileges and a kindly smack (oops, that's now illegal).
We all acknowledge that there are increasing numbers of dysfunctional families unable or unwilling to parent their children.
The vast majority, however, are doing an excellent job. The various arms of Government, including education, health, justice and welfare, need to identify, with the help of schools, those families derelict in their duties towards their children and introduce incentives and penalties to correct the problems.
Parents and teachers do not want schools to raise their children. They want schools to get on with the job of delivering the 3Rs, preparing students for the tertiary sector and job market. It is time the Government abandoned its low trust model of the Kiwi family's ability to bring up their own children.
Schools will, of course, support parents in their role but current government policy is coming dangerously close to schools being forced to usurp the role of parents. As a parent and principal I deeply resent this.
Like hundreds of thousands of Kiwi parents, I will decide what goes in my child's lunchbox, what they need to know about sex and how they relate to other people. I neither want, nor expect, the school to do this for me.
Schools already have an over-crowded curriculum with increasing difficulty covering the vast array of subjects necessary for the 21st century.
They should be permitted to educate rather than parent their students.
* Patrick Walsh is principal of John Paul College in Rotorua
