IPPN

STUDENTS engaged in borderline criminal activity in the classroom should be reported to the gardaí, Education Minister Mary Hanafin has insisted.

It emerged yesterday that up to 10% of the school population was engaged in disruptive behaviour. Those who engaged in extreme behaviour, however, represented a very small proportion.

The minister yesterday said: "Anything that is bordering on creating damage or going to the extreme for a teacher or another student in the classroom should be reported if it is verging on criminal behaviour."

Students who are out at night or the weekend, sitting on the walls, terrorising old people, throwing stones or being abusive were not going to change their behaviour when they came to school on a Monday morning.

"That may not be bordering on the criminal but it is something all of us as a school community have got to tackle," said Ms Hanafin as she received the interim report of the Task Force on Student Behaviour in Second-Level Schools.

Dr Maeve Martin, who chairs the task force, had made specific reference to cases that would be considered criminal.

"If they are, then those students should be reported to the gardaí," she said.

But Ms Hanafin said she did not believe principals should now take a zero tolerance approach to such students and expel them.

She believed the education system should be an inclusive one where every effort is made to support and involve such students.

Expelling a student was not necessarily the right answer because each student was entitled to an education but that right had to be balanced against the rights of other students in the same classroom.

Dr Martin said there was now evidence from other countries, including Britain, that the mental health of students was "more brittle" than it was a decade ago. There was now an onus on schools not only to teach, but to take care of the students.

Click here to access the article on the Irish Examiner web-site