The Education Ministry has €1.2 million to spend on beefing up security in schools, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said on Thursday.

A total of €717,000 have been budgeted for the introduction of a reception service at the entrance of all State schools and €500,000 for the provision of “security systems”.

The issue of lax security in schools made headlines earlier this year following two incidents in schools within the same week last February, leaving teachers slightly injured.

After a 15-year-old boy was hospitalised following an attack by another student at Pembroke secondary school, a father allegedly showed up and an assistant head and a teacher were hurt as they tried to break up a fight with another parent. Two men were arraigned over the incident.

In another incident, a student and a school official got into a fight at the St Ignatius College secondary school in Qormi.

Details will be announced in the coming days

The Malta Union of Teachers had proposed a review of physical access to schools to ensure it was controlled, as well as the allocation of a fund for security and deployment of security personnel. 

The teachers’ union had also published a study which found that nearly nine in 10 teachers reported having experienced aggression at their school over the past two years.

At least a fifth, or 23 per cent, claimed they experienced aggressive behaviour daily, while another 23 per cent said they did so every week. Three quarters of those who experienced such behaviour said the perpetrators were students.

In reaction, Mr Bartolo had said that the problem of aggression should not be brushed off because even one case of aggression was unacceptable.

He had said that €280,000 had been allocated in the budget for security systems at schools but was averse to turning school into high-security prisons.

Enhanced security was among the projects which have been budgeted for even though not mentioned in the Budget Speech for 2020, the minister said yesterday. Details will be announced in the coming days.

Mr Bartolo said he preferred to be granted the money to implement projects rather than announce projects without having the money to put them into practice. He was replying to questions about the fact that the Budget for 2020, announced earlier this week, appeared to contain few initiatives in the educational sector.

Mr Bartolo said that Finance Minister Edward Scicluna had been “generous” because there were funds for at least four initiatives in the pipeline. These included beefing up security in schools and setting up a reception area in school to be able to better manage the people who turned up.

There were also funds to finally set up residential school to help adolescents.