Te Radar: We can all rest assured that an awful lot of us won't die

I can honestly state, without any hint of sarcasm or flippant whimsy, that I sleep easier knowing someone had the foresight to create a position at the Ministry of Education entitled Pandemic Planning Manager.

The appointment has allowed them to issue the following statement on the threat of bird flu: "We will get a pandemic at some stage. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. However, there's no need to panic because an awful lot of us won't die."

Rarely have I encountered such a heady mixture of pessimistic optimism as this, proclaimed by the Pandemic Planning Manager, Graeme Marshall. In its own inimitable way it is oddly reassuring.

I cannot, however, believe that such a forward-thinking and compassionate organisation as the Ministry of Education, after pessimistically stating that a bird flu pandemic will strike these fair shores, wouldn't have used the possibility of the crisis to encourage the recruitment and training of good science students, willing them to do their bit for the benefit of humanity.

On the positive side it seems that schools, which are having increasing trouble dealing with spiralling violence among unruly students, are now also being asked to be prepared for a bird flu pandemic. No doubt this will come as a relief for teachers, as they will have more than enough reasons to have a few days off school, away from the horrors of the classroom, should the contagion arrive.

Even primary school teachers are saying that they, too, are now feeling threatened and unsafe in their classrooms.

School violence is now happening on such an unprecedented scale that some folk are proposing creating separate schools for the most ferocious students.

One has to wonder if those mooting this idea haven't watched too many reruns of films such as The Dirty Dozen, and believe that lumping the misfits together will somehow assist in revealing their hearts of gold.

No doubt they have come to this option as traditional punishments no longer seem to work. No longer can we simply send children to the principal's office, as an Australian survey of schoolchildren has revealed that the fear of this particular punishment has been transcended by more modern fears. These include the number one fear, that of being hit by a car, and bombs, which is ranked second.

Oddly, in spite of the clear threat of bird flu, the fear of germs has actually fallen from the list of things which make children afraid.

Gone from the list, too, is the children's fear of their fathers. Clearly the effects of fathers abandoning their families has had one positive effect.

Fortunately more sense was spoken at the New Zealand Educational Institute annual meeting this week, when it released its new guidelines for touching children safely, now that paedophile hysteria has rightly diminished.

Unfortunately the fact that the innocuous phrase "touching children" causes one to snigger snidely exemplifies the problems they face.