Educators have filed a total of 23 reports of aggression against them, in connection with nine separate cases, since the beginning of 2019, information tabled in Parliament on Monday reveals.

Asked by PN MP and Education spokesperson Clyde Puli about how many educators working at state schools had lodged reports of aggression against them with the Education Directorate, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo replied that his ministry had created a portal specifically for educators to  be able to report such instances.

He added that after the report is lodged, these educators receive asssistance and their case is surveyed on a weekly basis by the Directorate for Educational Services.

Bartolo said that there had been 23 reports of aggression filed since January 2019, and that these pertained to a total of nine separate cases.

State schools have been in the spotlight as of late, especially after a fight which broke out at the Pembroke secondary school escalated when the two brothers of one of the students involved gatecrashed the school and attacked the other student. 

AFM Staff Sergeant Alexander Camilleri and his brother Feliciano Camilleri were in fact in court today following the incident, pleading not guilty to charges of attacking and slightly injuring a 15-year-old pupil at the school, attacking and slightly injuring two teachers, insulting and threatening them, exceeding the limits of provocation, using obscene language in public and breaching the peace.

This brawl was hot on the heels of another unrelated one, this time between a student and a school official at the St. Ignatius College in Qormi.

The MUT have since put forward nine measures to Minister Bartolo to improve security at schools, with the suggestions including amongst others a ban on mobile phones in school with proper enforcement, allocation of a fund for security in schools, and all schools having a police or security presence in the morning and afternoon.