Pembroke parents, former minister want metal detectors after school stabbing

Parents at St Clare’s College in Pembroke and a former education minister have called for metal detectors to be introduced in schools. 

They were speaking after a 14-year-old boy was injured in a stabbing at the school on Monday morning, allegedly by another boy of the same age. 

One mother of a girl in the same age group said she wanted equipment similar to that used in courts and at airports.

“How can they be looking for phones, looking for makeup but not think to look for weapons," she asked. "This is why we need metal detection equipment.”

Police outside the school on Monday morning. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Other parents who spoke to Times of Malta outside the school echoed her views. 

And former education minister Evarist Bartolo also said there was a "need to introduce metal detector equipment to scan schoolbags and students" but added that the matter must be treated "without hysteria and panic".

"The matter must be treated as deeper than a security issue. So it must be dealt with humanely, educationally and socially - not turning schools into fortresses,” he said. 

Bartolo, who served as education minister in the 1990s under Alfred Sant and again between 2013 and 2020, added that schools need stronger collaboration with social workers “to address beyond-school complex realities as they are stronger than inside-school factors”.

Police questioned the 14-year-old boy and the victim, also 14, was treated in hospital. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

“Schools and their staffs must not be abandoned to themselves,” he said, calling for more interministerial cooperation in education, social services, health and law enforcement.

In 2023, the Union of Professional Educators wanted "hard-line" measures, including airport-style scanners, to be introduced in schools after a 12-year-old girl attempted to chase a pupil with a butter knife in Naxxar Middle School. 

'I'm not surprised this happened'

Some of the dozens of concerned parents gathered outside the Pembroke school on Monday told Times of Malta the attack felt inevitable. 

“I am not surprised this happened at all,” said one father. “This was a matter of when, not if something like this happened.”

Many of the parents arrived at the school after learning about the incident through media reports.  

“I left work and came here straight away as soon as I found out,” said a visibly emotional mother of a 12-year-old boy. “How am I meant to feel safe sending my child back to school?” she asked.

Other parents questioned how such an incident could occur without prior warning signs, especially given the school’s strict policies on personal items.

'Many of us like this school'

However, other parents expressed support for the school and sympathy for the staff.

“Many of us like the school. I like this school very much and have nothing but positive things to say so what happened today is incredibly unfortunate and completely unexpected. You never want to think this is possible until it happens,” one mother said.

She and another parent both noted that the school is under-resourced and needs more support to cater for its growing population of over 1,000 pupils.

This is not the first time St Clare’s College has drawn attention. In 2018, Lovin Malta reported claims that students were bringing knives to school. The Education Commissioner at the time, Charles Caruana Carabez, opened an investigation. 

The school in question was not named in his subsequent report but it highlighted “group-bullying by ethnic gangs formed within a school” as a major concern. 

It also noted that some “troublesome foreign students” appeared to have come from war-torn countries and “may have been brutalised by being exposed to violence at an early age”.

Those remarks were condemned by a coalition of 19 human rights and social justice NGOs, who said the commissioner’s statements relied on harmful stereotypes and overlooked the higher risks of bullying faced by migrant and ethnic minority students.

In 2019, the school was again in the headlines when a 15-year-old pupil was hospitalised with head injuries after allegedly being attacked by another student.

A magisterial inquiry is being held into Monday's incident, which took place at about 7.45am.