Teachers' responsibility

I see no reason to be surprised or shocked at the rise of abuse of children, teachers and other persons, criminality, vandalism etc. What you sow, you reap. Violent films, games and media are teaching, advertising and encouraging growing minds to do evil and behave badly.

Furthermore, teachers should be teachers even of good manners and behaviour. I had an incident during a school children's Mass at my parish church in Tarxien a few years ago. I happened to be sitting behind a group of children, about six years of age. One boy was constantly bullying those near him - pulling their ears and hair, pushing his finger into their eyes. The teacher chose to overlook this harassment.

At one point I could not stand it and told the teacher that the boy was bullying the others. She told me: "Don't butt in. I'm in charge here," and fondled the culprit!

Those leading a nation should be like good fathers and mothers, guiding, encouraging or stopping evil that tries to take over their children.

Let us stop wasting money on keeping criminals at bay. Let us, instead, invest in bringing up decent citizens. Teachers have enormous responsibility for this. While they should be given the right to even punish severely where necessary, they themselves should be monitored to accertain that they are doing an honest, productive job.