Number of SA public school students excluded over drugs more than doubles in two years

THE number of students banned from South Australian schools for long periods over drug incidents has more than doubled in two years.

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THE number of students banned from school for long periods over drug incidents has more than doubled in two years.

Education Department figures show 19 students were “excluded” in second term last year — the same term for which data is recorded each year — up from 13 in 2014 and 7 in 2013.

Excluded students are barred for between four and 10 weeks, while those aged older than 16 can be sent home for the remainder of a semester.

If students were punished at the same rate in each term, the tally of drug-related exclusions would have reached 76 for the full 2015 school year.

A further 25 students received short-term suspensions for up to a week over drug issues in Term 2 last year, a slight decrease from previous years.

The Education Department insisted that schools treated the use of illicit drugs and the misuse of prescription drugs with “the utmost seriousness”. It claimed, however, that numbers of students involved were a “tiny proportion” of the 168,000-strong student population.

It refused to name the schools most affected by drug issues.

The Advertiser requested the figures after the sentencing last month of former elite private school student Ciaran Oates, who pleaded guilty to trafficking and possessing illegal drugs for supply at Maylands in 2015, the year after he graduated.

Oates, 19, also admitted to selling cannabis and an ecstasy-like substance to fellow students at Pembroke School and at nearby public Marryatville High when he was in Year 12. A jail term of more than three years was suspended.

Of the 19 exclusions from public schools in Term 2, 2015, 13 involved use or possession of illicit drugs and six related to “unsanctioned”, or prescription drugs, which could include students taking other children’s medication.

Drug-related exclusions represented 7.4 per cent of all exclusion incidents, up from 5 per cent in 2014. Suspensions involving drugs comprised just 0.5 per cent of all suspensions. There were more suspensions over illicit than prescription drugs in last year’s snapshot, a reversal from previous years.

Executive director of statewide services and child development Ann-Marie Hayes was “confident that the existing mix of education programs and disciplinary consequences is effective.”

“While the wellbeing of the child is always paramount there are clear and appropriate consequences for students who breach the rules,” she said.

Any potential breaches of the law were referred to police, a department spokeswoman added.

Neither the Association of Independent Schools of SA or Catholic Education Office record drug-related statistics.