The teacher's union is prepared to close schools the next time one of its members falls victim to a serious attack by either students or parents.

The Malta Union of Teachers' reaction will be that of a "bulldozer", president John Bencini told the media yesterday.

He was speaking at a press conference in the wake of what the union termed were incidents of violence and bullying perpetrated on teachers at the Naxxar boy's secondary school. This behaviour had exceeded all limits, the union charged.

A man appeared in court yesterday accused of causing slight injuries to a teacher at the school. However, the union said this was not the only case of its kind; on Wednesday a teacher had a duster thrown at him and the problem was widespread and not restricted to government schools.

"This cannot go on. Isn't it obvious why teachers want to leave?" Mr Bencini asked.

Although the threat is to close schools for an hour or so - like it had done two years ago - if another serious attack occurs, the union says its main aim would be to raise awareness on the plight of teachers and to show what was driving teachers away from their profession.

Mr Bencini voiced alarm at the low number of students studying to become teachers.

The country, he said, could be faced with a situation where a number of classes would end up without professional teachers.

"Supply teachers have already started to be employed but this is not the solution," he said, adding that Malta might face a similar situation to that of the 1980s when unqualified teachers were employed.

"How can you have quality education when you don't have qualified teachers?"

For the first time in history teachers were seeking other jobs because they could no longer take it. The union had long been "begging" the authorities to try and attract dormant teachers back to the classroom, even with a reduced workload, because women - who make up about 80 per cent of teachers - often did not want to return to full-time work because of family demands.

Among the stress factors - apart from the fear of bullying and abuse - were big classrooms, Mr Bencini said. Thirty-pupil classes still exist although the historic agreement heralding a reform in education signed last July should have led to smaller classrooms.

"All this is putting more pressure on teachers."

But the MUT is mainly angry at the fact that some teachers feel threatened when they go to work because of unacceptable behaviour by a number of pupils or their parents.

The reform had spoken about the creation of learning zones in schools, where pupils with difficult behaviour would be educated with the help of social workers, psychologists and youth workers but these had not yet materialised.

Mr Bencini said a survey carried out two years ago among 1,000 teachers found that about 96 per cent thought pupil behaviour had deteriorated over the past years.

The Education Ministry deplored the attacks, saying it had been following the situation at the Naxxar school for several weeks in order to address the matter.

It pointed out that whenever students showed unacceptable behaviour, action was taken according to the Policy On School Behaviour. The college principal had been holding meetings with the head of school, teachers and students to draw up an action plan aimed at creating a peaceful environment.

The ministry referred to the agreement signed last July, saying this included the appointment of prefects of discipline, one of whom had already been employed at the Naxxar school.

However, Mr Bencini said the prefect of discipline had been appointed after the incident without even a call for applications. In fact, he added, the authorities simply called the school's former assistant head, who was retired, and asked him to take on the role, something that irked the union because this went against the reform agreement.

"This is an insult to the union and teachers," an evidently angry Mr Bencini said.