PARENTS CRITICISE LABOUR PLANS TO DRUG-TEST PUPILS

PARENTS last night criticised Scottish Executive support for Tony Blair's
plan to combat drug use in school with random urine tests for pupils and
use of sniffer dogs.

Alan Smith, the chairman of the Scottish School Boards Association, called
the Prime Minister's plans unworkable and said they would turn teachers
into prison wardens.

"Parents should be consulted before anything like this is introduced. There
are already sufficient powers in schools to deal with this and to have
headteachers acting as some kind of wardens from Alcatraz would break the
trust that exists between pupils and teachers," he said.

"We would be resistant to the whole idea of random selection of pupils and
have serious doubts about how this would be funded and who would implement it."

Mr Smith said paying for CCTV systems in schools would be a better use of
resources.

In an interview in the News of the World yesterday, Mr Blair revealed that
the government would be issuing guidelines to headteachers extending their
powers to tackle drugs in their schools.

These powers would include allowing them to carry out random urine samples
on pupils suspected of drug-taking and to bring in sniffer dogs to search
grounds.

"We can't force them to do it but if heads believe they have a problem in
their school, then they should be able to do random drug-testing," Mr Blair
said.

The powers would also allow them to offer drug counselling and treatment
programmes to users and to exclude repeat offenders.

"Some headteachers may worry that if they go down this path they are
declaring there is a problem with their school," Mr Blair continued.

"But in my view the local community is probably perfectly aware that there
is a problem. You [school heads] are not actually telling anyone anything
that they don't know and, if a school has got a serious drug problem, it
will be known."

The Scottish Executive has made it clear that it would be likely to
introduce a similar change in legislation.

A source close to the First Minister, Jack McConnell, said the Executive
"would not tolerate a regime that was weaker" than that adopted south of
the Border, adding: "Drug-taking in schools is intolerable. Education
authorities have considerable powers at the moment to deal with things like
that, but if ministers were required to give any additional powers to stop
drug-taking in schools they would certainly do it."

The drug powers are to be part of UKP1.5 billion programme aimed at
tackling the youth drug problem, that will be brought in across the UK over
the next two years.

Other elements of the scheme will include the drug-testing of any child
aged 14 and over if they are arrested in connection with crimes such as
burglary, shoplifting or robbery.

If the test proves to be positive, the child will be ordered to take part
in drug-treatment programmes.

However David Eaglesham, the president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers
Association, described the scheme, and the Executive's support for it, as
"nonsensical".

"This is a knee-jerk political reaction where once again policy which is in
place in the US is dropped wholesale into schools over here," he said.

"Schools are about education, not social engineering. If there is a problem
with drugs in a school then police are called in. We do not need random
testing."

But US government experts claim that this policy has had a significant
effect on the level of drug abuse among school pupils.