A law in study to punish violence at schools

In a declaration to “Echorouk” the education minister Abu Bakr Ben Bouzid revealed that a draft dealing with violence at school will be presented to the government for approval.

•  
• A national forum on violence within education institutions will be organized soon, he added. Discussions will evolve around the problematic, the causes behind this phenomenon and the appropriate ways and means to treat them.
•   
• On the sidelines of a seminar on Information Technology, M Ben Bouzid indicated that most of the cases of violence which involve students inside or outside education institutions, will be treated by justice, adding that schools are not the only side to blame, referring to the responsibility of the parents in contributing, somehow, to the spread of this phenomenon by their remissness with regard to the education of their children.
•  
• In this respect, Trade –Unionists raised the issue of judicial-vacuum concerning the law that forbids any kind of corporal punishment against pupils, on the other side the lack of a provision that protects teachers from their student’s reactions including acts of violence.
•   
• As a matter of fact, there is a flaw in the provision N° 22 as concerns the teachers’ rights as this one clearly points at the teacher’s responsibility concerning the pupils’ safety, whereas his remains unclear.
•  
• The phenomenon of violence at schools is dramatically spreading especially in middle and high schools. As to the nature of violence, it ranges from corporal assaults to sexual ones leading several unionists and other professionals of the sector to urge authorities to issue a law incriminating these acts.
•