The Minister of Education, Sports and Youth, Ms Athina Michailidou, participated today in a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Culture, where the issue of strengthening security in schools was discussed.
The Minister in her statements to journalists after the session said: "We participated today in the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Culture to discuss the issues of violence and delinquency phenomena that occur from time to time in our schools.
As the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, we stressed the obvious: that violence is a multifactorial phenomenon that needs to be addressed in parallel at different levels: individual, family, school and social. We know that the most serious issues are experienced in our schools during non-school hours and mainly by people who are not students.
Nevertheless, in this context, all relevant actors in our society need to develop appropriate actions immediately, so that we can effectively prevent and address issues of violence through coordinated and systematic actions.
Actions should be the result of integrated planning and not isolated or spasmodic.
We have explained today that as the Ministry of Education, we act mainly at the level of prevention. Our aim is for our pupils to develop skills and attitudes for a safe school environment from a very early age, from pre-school onwards.
We empower teachers and pupils in many ways, at many levels and in many ways. We have comprehensive planning, which we are already implementing, in order to develop appropriate communication skills, mutual respect, rejection of extreme behaviours. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is there and we are obliged to address it immediately and systematically
Therefore, in order to deal with these very serious phenomena, we are discussing passive measures, such as closed-circuit television, lighting, alarm systems, guarding, railings, but without leading us to extreme situations where our schools are seen and seen to be places of surveillance. Under no circumstances are our teachers and our students there to live, act and operate in guarded spaces.
Therefore, we are moving forward immediately, putting the issue on its proper footing so that it is treated as a matter of public safety and protection of public property, and we call upon all relevant agencies to join us. We will be meeting again soon to ensure that our schools are safe places to learn and create. That is what is at stake. We are working with the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection and the Minister of Justice and Public Order, as well as with all stakeholders.
We thank the Chairman and members of the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Culture for their very correct remarks and suggestions, which we have taken into account and we are moving forward so that very soon we can announce measures to address this issue immediately. Above all, however, we must put forward our main role, prevention, our strategy for prevention", concluded the Minister of Education.
IP
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