411 secondary school students tested positive for drugs

KUALA LUMPUR: Four hundred and eleven secondary school students throughout the country have screened positive for drugs in the first two months of this year, the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.

Deputy Education Minister II Datuk Chong Sin Woon said from the total, 403 cases were detected through urine tests conducted by the National Anti-Drugs Agency (AADK) while eight cases involved arrests by the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM).

"Most of the drug cases took place outside of the school...but once we have identified the highrisk groups, we will carry out urine screening with AADK in the schools.”

“If a student is found positive, we will conduct a rehabilitation programme for three months with AADK and we will carry out follow-up later. If the student is found positive again, we will enforce discipline by consensus via a committee at District Education Office level,” he said.

He was replying to a supplementary question by Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (BN-Baling) who wanted to know the measures taken by the government to overcome the problem of drug usage among school students.

Chong said the cooperation and support of all parties was necessary in the eradication of drug usage among school students.

To the original question by Abdul Azeez who wanted to know the statistics of students expelled from schools from 2014 to 2016, Chong said the decision to expel a student was the final alternative taken by the school against students with disciplinary problems.

"Based in the Student Discipline System (SSDM) record of the overall students, 0.04 percent of students were expelled in 2014, 0.03 percent in 2015 and 0.01 percent in 2016.

"Most of the students expelled were involved in truancy. Under the circular, a student found playing truant continuously for more than 30 days or randomly for 60 days will be expelled,” he said.

However, parents can appeal for their children to be re-admitted into the school within a month.

“I must stress that the appeal by parents for the readmission of their children would be approved as the measure was only a lesson for the students,” he said. Bernama