Firstly, well done to Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison for their support and armed assistance to Ukraine. The supply of anti-ship missiles by the UK especially will help a lot. The rugby fraternity will also be saddened to learn of the death of a brave rugby forward, Oleksi Tsybko, mayor of Smela and former Captain of the Ukrainian national side, who fell for his homeland whilst defending his city from the Russian invaders.
Closer to home, I was disappointed but not surprised to see Education Minister Yvette Berry survive a vote of no confidence in relation to Calwell High where in recent times Year 7 and 8 has been sent home for the rest of the term because of gang violence by unruly mobs of students who attacked several teachers, including the principal who they threw across her desk and another teacher who suffered a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth and bruising. Work Cover deemed the school unsafe. Teachers at the school are exhausted and described the school as a “war zone”.
The AEU reports that this is not an isolated incident and in the last quarter there have been 1,610 reported incidents of violence in our public schools, mostly against teachers.
For my sins, I still hold the record as the longest-serving ACT Education Minister (March 1995 to November 2001). Twenty years ago, the ACT had the highest scores in literacy and numeracy in Australia for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and were right up there amongst the best in the world. Today we are mid-ranking in Australia and behind Kazakhstan in the world ratings. We did have the odd act of violence in schools but attacks on teachers were rare. It’s not money that’s the problem. Our public schools are the best resourced in Australia – 20-25 per cent above the Australian average.
Back in 1965 when I was a student in Year 8 at Narrabundah High, whilst we had the odd schoolyard fight, there was no mob violence and no one would dream of hitting a teacher. Yes, we had the cane then as a deterrent, but this endemic violence is something much more recent. It seems to have worsened in the last 10 years.
The Greens should hang their heads in shame for not voting with the Liberals in their vote of no confidence in the Minister. Yvette Berry seems to be a nice person, but the buck does stop with her as minister. In an assembly with a minority government, she would be gone.
I would suggest a solution to the violence: Principals need to go to court and obtain restraining orders, and press charges for assault against the worst offenders. When I was Special Magistrate in 2008-09, I granted a number of restraining orders against some unruly high school students who had bullied some fellow students. They seemed to work quite well and there is nothing like a day in court as the defendant to concentrate the mind.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.
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