Poor Parenting Blamed For The Increased Use of Drug Abuse in schools in Kenya

Parents are responsible for their children’s destructive behaviours in schools, said Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha.

Speaking during the launch of the National Guidelines for Alcohol and Substance use prevention and management in Basic Education Institutions, Prof. Magoha accused parents of failing to be good role models to their children.

The guidelines will assist in keeping learning institutions free from alcohol and substance use.

“A child will not do what you say, a child will do what you do. There is a need for parents to accept that they are responsible for what is happening to our children,” reiterated Prof. Magoha.

Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, who also attended the event, assured schools of the Ministry’s support to prevent alcohol and substance use in basic education institutions countrywide.

“The work has just begun, it is upon all of us to ensure the effective implementation of these guidelines,” said Kibicho.

Statistics show that alcohol, khat, tobacco, and bhang are the most abused drugs in Kenya’s schools. Learners get them from shops near schools.

According to a survey conducted by Kenya’s National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) in 2017, alcohol is the most abused substance, with 12.2 percent being persons aged 15-65 being active users.

The authority also conducted another survey in 2019 to establish the extent of drug abuse among primary school students. It discovered that 20.2 percent of pupils had used at least one substance in their lifetime.

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