The figures released by the Education Minister last week, show that last year there were 266 suspensions for attacking teachers in Northern Ireland schools.

Cllr. Lewis said: “The figures released by the Minister for Education show that we have a serious problem of violence being perpetrated against teaching staff in our schools.

“Whilst the figures show that there have been 266 suspensions from school for pupils who physically attacked their teachers, that does not necessarily reflect accurately the total number of physical attacks being carried out in our schools.”

Cllr. Lewis, who is also a school governor, said that “more disturbingly still” figures show that a quarter of these attacks against teachers were perpetrated by primary school pupils.

“Whilst everyone has a raft of proposals about solving these problems, most of which involve “understanding” the children who do such things or spending massive amounts of money facilitating various programmes to identify potential offenders, we need also to ask about the role of parents in the behaviour of their children,” Cllr. Lewis said.

She added: “Parents need to take some responsibility for the actions of their youngsters.

“Teaching is an honourable profession – those who enter it are genuinely serving their community. They should not be subjected to harassment of any kind when going about their duties.”