Student, 13, assaults school head

A school headmaster needed medical attention yesterday after he was viciously attacked by a 13-year-old student who refused to remove a cap which was not part of the school uniform, the Malta Union of Teachers said.

MUT president John Bencini described the incident as "one of the worst ever" school assaults in Malta, ironically only a day after the union held a seminar on unacceptable pupil behaviour.

The attack took place before the morning assembly when the head of the Paola Secondary School repeatedly ordered the student to remove the cap. According to the MUT, the Form 2 student refused to remove the headwear and started insulting the headmaster before he assaulted him. The school head needed immediate medical assistance and was then taken to St Luke's Hospital for further medical test.

MUT general secretary Joseph Degiovanni told The Times last night that tests were being carried out to establish whether the victim had incurred fractures. He said the aggressor had a history of delinquency.

The MUT immediately alerted the Education Division about the incident and called for an investigation with Mr Bencini even calling on the police to intervene in the matter.

The Education Division said it had suspended the student indefinitely until the national board for student behaviour investigated the incident. In the meantime, the Students' Service Department is taking the necessary measures to evaluate the educational, social and psychological needs of the student in question and to offer the necessary assistance.

"Such incidents are intolerable and proves that the MUT was right to hold a conference on the subject," Mr Bencini said.

Malta, he said, lacked the necessary structures like the UK, which would automatically ban such children from schools.

"As things stand, the student will go back to the same school and the school head - not a teacher - risks becoming the laughing stock among the pupils," Mr Bencini told The Times. "Obscene language among students has become the order of the day and normally it is parents, not pupils, that physically attack teachers. This is the worst incident I've heard of since I've been MUT president (since 1996). What next?" he asked.

Speaking during the conference on Wednesday, Education Minister Louis Galea said schools had the right to exclude and expel students because of repeated unacceptable behaviour.

Additionally, the government had amended the law to raise fines for those attacking teachers or public officials.

In an MUT survey carried out three years ago among teachers, 64 per cent of respondents said they had been verbally abused and another 31 per cent reported they had experienced physical abuse.