Teachers' right to safe environment

A lot has been said and written following the Malta Union of Teachers' latest stand in connection with students' verbal and physical abuse against teachers.

Maybe readers would find it interesting to note that in Febuary 2003, Britain's House of Lords Court ruled that the nation's teachers were acting within their rights when they refused to teach two students expelled for violent behaviour.

This decision came in a case pitting the teachers' right to a safe work environment against the students' right to a standard education.

In the cases at hand, both students were expelled for violent and disruptive behaviour. After their parents appealed, they were returned to school, but taught in isolation from other students - treatment the students and their parents argued was unfair and illegal.

The House of Lords, Britain's highest court, ruled against their appeal, saying the teachers' unions had a right to issue such directives to teachers to refuse to teach students they believed posed a continuing threat.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers and the National Union of Teachers (NUT), who were both supporting the teachers' case, welcomed the ruling.

Noting that violent student behaviour was the second leading cause, after workload, cited by teachers abandoning the profession, NASUWT former general secretary Eamonn O'Kane had declared that the court's ruling "will give heart to every teacher in the UK".

The MUT reiterates that even these students have to be taken care of but insists that teachers have a right to teach and students have a right to learn in a decent learning environment. The education and future of the majority of students should not be put at risk because of the unacceptable behaviour of the few.

The MUT has now put a number of proposals to the education authorities in order to start tackling this very serious situation and now expects the competent authorities to implement and put in practice such proposals preferably before the start of next scholastic year.