“We follow the law. If a child is under the age of eighteen, then the parent must be involved in whatever the issue the child is undergoing,” this is the position of the National Parents Association.
This follows an ongoing debate of whether students should be subjected to mandatory drug testing or not.
But according to the parent’s association national chairman Nicholas Maiyo, tests on students, including for drug use, pregnancy, and HIV by the school authorities without parents’ consent is illegal.
Maiyo insists that parents must be involved in the whole process.
He notes that without being properly structured, the drug testing process may be used by teachers to settle scores with students and parents.
“A teacher may be having a grudge with a student and without thinking twice, he ends up concluding that the student is a drug addict, even if he is not,” noted the parents’ chairman.
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He is now calling on stakeholders in the education sector to jointly discuss whether students should be tested on drug use or not.
The parents association also wants clear procedures put in place to guide the drug testing process, to avoid schools taking advantage of the process.
It also wants the Ministry of Education to avoid making decisions that affect students without consulting with other stakeholders, among them the parents.
“Before a decision like testing students on drug use is reached, the Ministry or schools must first engage parents and see what their input is,” noted the National Parents Association.
