A private school in Randburg, Gauteng, on Monday strongly condemned the government’s recent published draft policy banning random drug testing and searches at schools.
Teachers at the Aurora Private School, which implemented random drug testing nine years ago, said the ban had come as ”a severe blow”.
Anne-Marie Strydom, CEO of the school, said random drug testing had proven to be highly effective in rooting out drug problems and protecting children who were not users.
”Random drug testing is highly effective and should be part of how modern schools deal with a modern social problem,” Strydom said.
She said the tests helped children who tested positive for drug use to make the turnaround from a lifetime of chemical dependency.
”When a child at Aurora tests positive for drug abuse, the parents are called in… (and) the learner undergoes a rehabilitation and drug-counselling programme.
”With the rehabilitation programme they (the children) are able to get out of drugs altogether.
”Only four pupils have ever tested positive more than once during their school careers with us,” said Strydom. ”And that is in the nine years of our school’s existence.”
Strydom also said drug testing was an immensely powerful tool for children to resist peer pressure.
”The risk of being caught at school during a random drug test gives children a good excuse to avoid the opportunity of experimenting with drugs,” she said.
Draft policy published in the Government Gazette in June said that, by its very nature, ”drug testing is an invasion of privacy and may infringe on the constitutional and personal rights of learners. It should therefore not be the first point of
intervention.
”It (testing) will only be considered if in the child’s best interests, and done in an environment where his or her privacy, dignity and bodily integrity are safeguarded,” the policy stated. – Sapa