Primary school teachers must have right to protect themselves

4.43.00pm GMT Thu 2nd Mar 2006

Young Alliance Chair Ian James Parsley has called the rising number of attacks on primary school teachers "absolutely intolerable", and said teachers must be protected by widening of laws to protect NHS workers.

Responding to a report by the Irish National Teachers' Organization that up to 50 teachers a year are leaving the profession in Northern Ireland after being attacked in the classroom, the North Down Councillor stated:

"New of attacks on teachers by pupils as young as three will come as a shock to many. But I myself know primary school teachers who sometimes return home from work in the evening with bruises, having been attacked or having had to put their own safety on the line to restrain pupils.

"It has rightly been accepted that attacks on nurses and other health service personnel are unacceptable, and new laws are planned to tackle this. There is no question that such laws should be extended to the classroom.

"Teachers, like health service personnel, work a genuinely full week usually going well beyond the call of duty in their determination to give children the best possible education. It is absolutely intolerable that they should be burdened with threats of violence against them. Many of our best people enter the teaching profession, and it is important this continues to be the case."

ENDS