Teachers' union calls for wide debate on fate of unruly pupils

The Malta Union of Teachers is urging parents, educators and authorities to start a serious debate on the fate of pupils with unacceptable behaviour.

"This is an issue of civil society and not just of the union. We need to urgently get all our heads together to decide the best way forward," MUT president John Bencini said when contacted.

Teachers were not psychologists and unruly pupils should be receiving some form of rehabilitation through education under the care of the right professionals, he insisted.

His appeal comes just days after a school head was assaulted by a 13-year-old student who refused to remove a cap, which was not part of the school uniform.

Mr Bencini reported that despite the trauma the school head was back running the school yesterday morning.

"This has been a commendable move on the part of the school head; a clear sign of his dedication and commitment to ensure things do not get out of hand. It serves to get the message across to other students. The head has a strong character and he will not be disheartened easily," he said.

Touching on this week's incident, Mr Bencini praised the Education Division for taking immediate steps to suspend the student indefinitely. However, the union felt that sending the student back to the same school was not the solution.

"We need to immediately start a discussion on having specific schools that are equipped to handle these students. At the moment we have the Mater Dei school for boys in Msida but it needs to be better equipped. Maybe we can continue to build on this system," he said.

Referring to the speech Henrik Billehøj, from the European Trade Union Committee for Education, delivered to the MUT's seminar this week, Mr Bencini said that in Europe two out of every five classes were unmanageable.

"It's not the case in Malta but it's a fact that the issue of uncontrollable students is on the increase and we should do our utmost not to reach such a situation," he said. "The unacceptable behaviour of the few is disrupting those children who want to learn and leading to frustration."