From: BEATS@BESTST.COM   
      
   Parents slam new plans for pubs in schools   
      
      
   School children will be able to have a pint after lessons under new   
   proposals.   
      
   By Daily Mail Reporter   
      
   Parents have reacted angrily to plans to open pubs in schools but education   
   officials have backed the plan.   
   Ministers have stressed that they want a relaxed 'continental' approach to   
   alcohol and schooling.   
   Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell defended the 'Pupil Pubs' yesterday: "We   
   think it extremely important that children and alcohol are introduced to   
   each other at the earliest opportunity and it's quite obvious that the best   
   way to do this is to allow children to make adult decisions within the   
   context of a commercial drinking environment. That is why the present   
   proposals make so much sense.   
   But parents from  Parents Against Alcohol in Schools Association have   
   reacted with fury.   
   Chief Executive, Dick Dry, said: "Several schools have opened pupil pubs on   
   the premises and began trading last week. One nine-year-old boy stabbed a   
   teacher in the bar with a compass after a drinking game they were involved   
   in turned nasty.   
   "At one school I know about they've already begun a yard of ale competition   
   with neighbouring schools. A geography teacher was badly injured there last   
   week during a rowdy game of darts in the bar at lunchtime. I see the more   
   traditional school sports suffering because of this."   
    In south London Indian restaurants have also complained to the police that   
   rowdy schoolchildren besiege their premises after school. Raj Patel, manager   
   of the Lord Dickie Curry House, Tooting Broadway, said: "The children come   
   barging in here about five pm, very drunk and abusive, demanding lager,   
   curry and poppadums and singing rugby songs. One seven-year-old prides   
   himself on being able to eat two vindaloos in a row."   
   But a spokesman for the teacher's union rejected claims that children were   
   arriving at school in the mornings too unwell to work and said: "Being a   
   teacher or a pupil is a very stressful job and teaching sensible drinking is   
   part of the National Curriculum."   
   When asked about the plan to have 24-hour drinking in school bars over   
   Christmas, he said: "Kids need space as much as parents. People are making a   
   great deal of fuss about this and I think that will pass once school's have   
   casinos in them and an element of leisure choice comes into play."   
   The brewer's association was unavailable for comment last night.   
      
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