Grade As All Round
Presumably, the data will be punched into a computer and the results listed in league tables. At a glance, parents will be able to see which schools have the most stoned pupils and which the least.
As the Times reports, the scheme is to be trialled in Kent. Children in the garden of England will have their mouths swabbed for drugs, like cannabis, cocaine and heroin.
And before you say this is criminalising children and bringing the ways of the police into schools, the paper says the scheme has already been a hit at one institution.
Peter Walker, head teacher at The Abbey School, Faversham, Kent, says drugs testing has achieved good results.
We had our best set of exam results in the schools history, says he. There was less disruption in the class room, less incidents in the playground or on the way to school.
Not that the school appears to have a big problem with drugs. Of 600 random drugs tests performed on children aged 11 to 18, only one was found to be on stimulants.
So now the scheme will be rolled out across the county. And if it goes well there, the entire country could be next.
But what of those results? What do they tell us? Out of hundreds of pupils tested, just one was found out. Either lots of children got lucky or the drugs problem has been overestimated.
As the paper says, a recent Department of Health report asked children how many of them had tried drugs. On child in 50 said they had tried cocaine. Around 12 per cent said they had used cannabis. In all, 19 per cent claimed to have taken illegal drugs.
If The Abbey School is a typical school, then we could expect more than one culprit to have been snared. We could expect to see the figure approaching 114.
Of course this might just mean that the scheme scares pupils off trying drugs. Which is a desirable thing.
Or it might mean that children have lied to the Government. In which case, they are no better than criminals and should be dealt with accordingly…
Posted: 31st, May 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
