Scotland must urgently get a grip on growing problem of weapons in schools
Fifty per cent rise in the use of weapons in schools after the pandemic hit must prompt a serious response from ministers
According to new figures, there were 293 cases of a knife or other offensive weapon being used in Scotland’s schools in the three years after the pandemic, a rise of 50 per cent on the three years before.
Astonishingly, one-in-ten primary school support staff also reported the use of weapons in incidents between pupils in the week before they took part in a Scottish Government-commissioned survey. Primary school pupils!
Scotland once had a reputation for violence with Glasgow regarded as the “Murder Capital of Europe”. After much good work, it managed to shed this grim image, but these figures – provided by the Scottish Government in response to a parliamentary question from the Conservatives – demonstrate knife crime is a growing problem again.
‘Terrrifying collapse of discipline’
There has also been a general problem of bad behaviour in schools, with teachers at Kirkintilloch High School even threatening to take industrial action over pupils’ violence, swearing and ill-discipline. This simply cannot stand.
Commenting on the figures, Conservative education spokesman Miles Briggs spoke of a “terrifying collapse of discipline in Scotland’s schools” and a “rising tide of classroom violence”, but little more than “hand-wringing and warm words from the SNP”.
Knife crime among the young is also a serious problem south of the Border, with the UK Government planning to make it harder for under-18s to order knives online. Under Labour’s plans, buyers will be asked for a passport or other form of identity and to record a live video to prove their age.
This may help prevent access to the more extreme weapons, but kitchen knives will always be readily available. Stopping young people from carrying weapons is more about creating the right kind of ‘culture’ – a difficult task that requires the maintenance of discipline, both in schools and at home, and education about values and the risks. Many carry knives out of fear, not realising this puts them in greater danger.
We urgently to need turn these children away from a dangerous path. Doing so could save them from living out the rest of their days with the indelible moral stain of being a killer but also, most importantly, innocent lives.