Teachers 'untrained' to deal with challenging behaviour

Unacceptable behaviour by 23 students towards their teachers was reported in the past two years and the schools were assisted to address the problem, Education Minister Louis Galea said yesterday.

Speaking during a Malta Union of Teachers conference on Unacceptable Pupil Behaviour held on the occasion of the union's 86th anniversary, Dr Galea said several cases had been reported to the National Board for Behaviour at Schools where the children were given an alternative education service.

The board has tackled 67 cases and another six cases were still to be seen to.

Referring to comments by the MUT reported in The Times on Tuesday, the minister said one got the impression that nothing was being done by the authorities and that teachers were not finding the necessary support.

Such criticism was completely unjust and unacceptable, he said. Schools had the right to exclude and expel students because of repeated unacceptable behaviour.

Additionally, the ministry had set up the national board and the government had amended the law to raise fines for those attacking teachers or public officials.

Dr Galea denied claims that teachers were leaving their job because of difficult students' behaviour. In the past scholastic year, he said, 14 teachers had resigned their post but no one had indicated unacceptable student behaviour as the reason.

During a debate on What Causes Useless Behaviour? mother, school councillor and teacher Joyce Callus stressed the importance of focusing more on kindergarten and the early primary years.

In the not-so-distant past, when parents used to have many children, every family and every street was a kindergarten and what children used to learn from that environment, such as cooperation, had now to be learnt at school. Teachers were not trained to deal with students with challenging behaviour. Challenging behaviour, she said, could be "an attempt at belonging".