VIOLENCE AT SCHOOL

Primary School teacher F.N. made a six-year-old student lay under a table and started kicking the child because the student had interrupted the teacher. A trainee on duty in the class at the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) Primary School in Antakya in the province of Hatay (eastern Mediterranean coast) recorded the incident with a mobile phone and sent it to the nationwide Turkish news channel NTV, where it was published yesterday (20 April).

Apparently, the teacher shouted at the students, "If you interrupt your teacher, you will be a doormat as you see".

Hatay Governor Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz announced that both the school principle and the teacher were deposed from office after the footage of the torture had been broadcasted. Governor Lekesiz furthermore declared that inspectors of the Ministry of National Education (MEB) initiated an investigation.

Teachers' union launched investigation

Besides the inspectors of MEB, the Education and Science Workers' Union (Eğitim-Sen) launched a separate investigation into the TOBB Primary School. Specialists from the Eğitim-Sen Hatay Branch investigate whether violence has occurred at the school before.

Eğitim-Sen President Zübeyde Kılıç told bianet, "We are investigating whether this teacher has imposed violence on the students before, whether there is a history of violence and whether there are further examples previously experienced. We will speak to the parents and the teachers".

"Not a singular event"

Eğitim-Sen President Kılıç pointed out that the incident could not be seen as a singular event or assessed as a "psychological disorder" of the teacher.

"If you look at it from this perspective, you will not reach the core of the problem. We have to study economic, social, political and psychological reasons that drive various parts of society towards violence. There are several incidents which never become public because nobody complains at school. Institutions and organizations related to the Ministry have to come together with specialists in order to free educational institutions from violence. They have to evaluate the situation urgently and work out concrete interventions", Kılıç suggested.

Violence as a means of learning discipline

Kılıç called for taking general measures against violence at schools and educational institutions. She furthermore proposed an "Anti-Violence Training" which should include all components.

"In particular the limits and a definition of violence should be set. The basic problem is that violence is still seen as a method of discipline by many. We need anti-violence training that should definitely include education unions, pedagogues, psychologists, parents, students, teachers and executives. Superficial short-term measures will not be sufficient".

Students: "We are being beaten!"

After the "Symposium on Violence as a Social Problem" in 2006, Eğitim-Sen published a book concerned with violence at schools. A study carried out with 600 students yielded the following results:

* Teachers pulled the ears of almost half of all interrogated students (43.83 percent);

* More than a third of all students had been slapped by a teacher (38.17 percent);

* More than a quarter of the students had been pulled by their hair, teachers threw chalk or the black board eraser at them (28.67 percent);

* More than ten percent of all students had been kicked by a teacher (13.00 percent);

* More than ten percent had been hit with a stick (11.67 percent);

* Almost six percent of all students participating in the study had been severely beaten by a teacher (5.83 percent);

* Almost five percent of the students said that their teacher had slapped their heads against the wall or the bench (4.61 percent). (SP/VK)