THE BRITISH Prime Minister Mr John Major, pledged yesterday to fund a programme of measures to improve school security following the inquiry into the murder of a London headmaster, Mr Philip Lawrence.
Although Mr Major has yet to examine the inquiry's recommendations, he promised that they would be "speedily" implemented. "I think there is a consensus in this House that schools should be secure places where children can learn free from fear," he said. "We will do all we can to ensure that is the case."
The inquiry concluded that a "substantial sum of new money" must be invested in school security and recommended that close circuit television systems, perimeter fencing and controls over access and exits should be introduced.
The Education Secretary, Mrs Gillian Shepherd, also promised to re examine the issue of school discipline and introduce new laws to protect teachers following the refusal of staff at a South Tyneside comprehensive to teach a 12 year old boy who has a history of violent behaviour.
"The balance is between the rights of the institution and the other people in it, and the rights of the individual child and his or her parents. It is the right time to look again at a range of issues to do with discipline, exclusion, detentions, appeals panels, readmission of pupils who have been excluded and the rights of parents," she said.
British teaching unions welcomed Mrs Shepherd's comments, but pointed out that the new laws will be "too late" for a 11 year old boy who was shot in the head by two pupils and is now "too frightened" to return to school. Yesterday his father's High Court challenge to have the two pupils involved in the attack expelled from the school failed.
Meanwhile, West Sussex County Council launched an immediate inquiry yesterday into a teacher's decision to plant a bogus IRA bomb in her classroom and make her pupils search for it "to fire their imaginations". Many of the children, aged nine to 10, wept and were informed that the bomb was a hoax only after they had found the package.