The problem is worse for day schools

The challenge to ensure that students adhere to school rules and regulations of not bringing anything considered unnecessary or illegal is much harder when you have students that commute daily from home.

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

The challenge to ensure that students adhere to school rules and regulations of not bringing anything considered unnecessary or illegal is much harder when you have students that commute daily from home. With a day school, one cannot check every student every morning to see what exactly they have carried in their bags. Most of the times, all that authorities check for, is whether those entering the school gate have full school uniform and have arrived on time. In such a scenario, it becomes easy for these students to smuggle in illicit drugs and other items that are not supposed to be in the possession of students while at school. Items like mobiles phones, cigarettes, and hard liquor in small bottles as well as other drugs are easily brought in this way. The situation is not helped when the school is both day and boarding. In such a case it is common for the day scholars to turn into some kind of traffickers for the boarding school students. The boarding students will often send the day scholars to bring for them different items as per their demands. Therefore even when a day student is not a smoker, he will gladly take on the role of smuggling cigarettes for those who stay behind at the end of class time. Girls also may be used to smuggle in more (often skimpy) clothes and things like make up kits as well as drugs and mobile phones for their colleagues who are in the boarding section of the school. What school authorities can do in such a case is to carry out random searches on those students that they may suspect to be involved in such activities. It should be clearly stated in the rules that although they have to commute from home daily, it is not a licence for them to carry anything they want into the school. It is important for students to always remember why they are in school and to always stick to doing their best so as to best account for the time they spent at school. All the things they clamour for are in plenty once they are done with school. For all this to be effective, parents must be brought on board. They should know very well what the school expects so that they work together with the school administration to ensure that rules are followed properly. There have been several situations where students have been caught with illegal items that were given to them by their parents. Parents should not be partners in crime with students but should be partners with the school to ensure that children get the best out of their time in school.