It’s interesting, but the desire to have an effective means of dealing with smoking is one of the main reason girls and co-educational schools seem to have for retaining the cane when they have done so (and, yes, in Australia, as well, girls smoke significantly more often than boys). Because of the health and legal issues involved, smoking must be treated as a very serious offence – but it’s a serious offence that is sometimes engaged in by students who’d be unlikely to commit any other serious offence.
Slightly off topic, but it is also my view that parents and especially mothers. are now making the same mistake in treating boys as girls. The results can be seen all around us and especially on the street late at night, after heavy under age drinking.
