At first glance, who would you think would be the least likely group to be calling for education against improper gambling?
CLUBS Australia is calling for responsible gambling education to be part of the national school curriculum.
“Youth are at increased risk of developing a gambling problem,” Clubs Australia said.
“Research has found that education programs can be an effective tool in preventing the development of problematic gambling behaviours.”
Clubs Australia said the program should dispel common myths about gambling and educate people about how to gamble safely.
It would also highlight consequences of problem gambling and promote avenues of help and ways to intervene, it said.
But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Clubs Australia achieve two important objectives by supporting gambling education.
1. They can boast about how they are all about social gambling and very much opposed to problem gambling. This is potentially a great PR coup for them; and
2. It’s not as if they will lose anything out of it. Since when does a three lesson program on gambling behaviour have any effect in later life?
They have argued that such programs have proven effective. I dispute that claim. I don’t think they really believe it makes much of a difference either.
The bigger question is how many “good cause” programs are we going to have to put up with in the new National Curriculum? It’s all well and good to adopt educational programs, but a teacher cannot afford to spend too much time on them. Not only are they dubious in their long-term effectiveness, but they can potentially hijack the curriculum.
I personally am sick of the abundance of such programs. It takes so much teaching time away from maths, science, reading, writing and history, that it ultimately, for all its good intentions, puts teachers under greater pressure to cover important skills in a reduced amount of time.
Clubs Australia will get a lot of good press out of this story. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be more problem gamblers as a result of the positive spin of this story that there will be responsible gamblers as a result of educational programs.
Tags: Addiction, CLUBS Australia, Education, Educational Programs, Gambling, life, News, parliamentary inquiry, Politics
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