Yet, in these busy times do parents ever stop and think about the possibility that their child might be using drugs? South Africa is hooked.
School children’s appetite for deadly drugs - cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and others - are trashing a most wonderful and precious resource: human potential.
Recent studies have painted a grim picture of South African schools. Many children are involved in gangs, or abuse alcohol and drugs, and engage in unprotected sex. LIEZL MACLEAN reports.
Those cold words represent incalculable tragedy. Souls in droves - empty, spiritually lost, drawn in by a culture that glamorizes lawlessness and depravity - are vainly seeking solace and refuge in destructive substances.
Besides ravaging their own minds, they are wasting their fortunes and destroying their families. Many schools in South Africa, increasingly awash in drugs, witness more and more young people robbed of their bright futures as they are drawn into the dark drug subculture.
So much so that it has spurred Education Minister Naledi Pandor to take a hard-line approach to pupils using drugs at school, the Tribune pointed out. Random drug testing at schools is being instituted to safeguard both teachers and pupils.
The department of education has identified drugs as the key cause of school violence, said department spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele.
He said a Bill had been tabled last year and a team was reviewing public comment on drug testing devices.
“They will make recommendations to the minister, who will send out the guidelines in a form or circular. The law gives principals or people designated by them the power to search and conduct spot checks if there is reasonable suspicion that pupils are using drugs,” Ngqengelele said.
Moreover parents are often unaware of their children’s use of alcohol and drugs; and this is true of even the most observant of parents, within open family relationships, who are often oblivious to their children’s use and abuse of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.
So if parents are not recognising their adolescent children’s problems, and adolescents are not revealing them to their parents, where can the help to come from?
The Star recently highlighted a unique service that communicates between schools and parents. SMSweb is a system that offers a way for schools to notify parents of any relevant news, offering direct communication with each parent.
Salah Elbaba, the managing director of SMSweb, said the service acted like an early-warning system. “Our service allows schools to easily communicate every misdemeanour to parents so that they can get involved with the discipline process straight away. As messages are sent directly from the school via SMS to the parent’s cellphone, they are guaranteed to get them”.
“As a parent you may dread to discover that your teenager drinks during breaks at school, or that your 12-year-old son is HIV-positive due to his sexual exploits behind the bicycle shed. Sadly, these incidents occur every day at schools in South Africa”.
“If parents know first hand about problems that the child has been having at school, their input can be invaluable in aiding the teacher,” said Elbaba.
In the past when a child misbehaved, the school would deal with it. If the situation warranted, a letter would be sent home to the parents.
“Nine times out of 10 the letter never got home and parents were blissfully unaware of what was happening.”
“We have schools that have seen a drop in truancy of between 30 percent and 50 percent. Parents seem to think school is a place where their kids are safe from the outside world, but so often this perception is proven wrong. Parents need to have a more hands-on approach when it comes to their child’s school, and the system we offer is one way that this can happen,” said Elbaba.
Children will always want to experiment with drugs and will always find ways to get them. This is very troubling. Research has shown that the use of alcohol and drugs at a young age is a risk factor for developing substance abuse or dependence in the future.
We need to expose the empty, violent, seedy wasteland that is substance abuse.
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