Syndicate urges quick action to stiffen penalties against teacher assailants

AMMAN — The Jordan Teachers Association (JTA) said the government should speed up the endorsement of a proposal to stiffen penalties against assailants of educators after a group of people attacked teachers at a boys’ school in Khreibet Al Souk area on Thursday.

In a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times, the JTA said a group of people from the same family came in a bus to the school and beat teachers and caused damage to their cars. 

The alleged assailants were angry because teachers separated two groups of students that engaged in a brawl and sent a student accused of attacking his classmates to the principal’s office to take administrative measures against him. 

“The teachers were surprised to see a group of people who came by bus carrying sticks and started attacking a teacher and hitting his car,” said the statement, adding that the family thought the bruises caused to the student were by teachers and not by the other group in the brawl.  

Also Thursday, the syndicate’s spokesperson, Ayman Okour, said several assault cases against teachers were reported at Irbid, Karak and Salt at the beginning of the new scholastic year, which started Tuesday, blaming what he called an “unjustified” delay by the government to approve stiffer penalties on those who attack educators physically or verbally.

The JTA spokesperson called on the government to shoulder its responsibilities in protecting educators. 

According to association figures, a total of 39 assaults on teachers were recorded during the first half of 2015, with 10 per cent of the cases referred to court, while the rest were resolved through reconciliation.

The JTA report on assault cases during the January-June period, released recently, said that in the same period of 2014 only 25 cases were recorded. 

In this year’s incidents, students attacked teachers by hitting them with clubs and cleavers, and they also raided classrooms, formed gangs and fired gunshots, according to the statement.

JTA President Hussam Masheh has previously charged that the number of attacks during the first half of this year indicates that no one is seriously working to resolve the phenomenon, which he said threatens the institution of education in its entirety.

But the Education Ministry has always stressed the importance of respecting teachers and safeguarding their rights, with officials stressing that the ministry does not accept any offensive behaviour or attacks against teachers.

In May this year, the ministry filed a lawsuit against some Ramtha residents who assaulted teachers at Al Miqdad Bin Al Aswad School, injuring one of them.