Serious concern has been voiced over the rising tide of violence in Scottish schools.
Local constituency MSP Finlay Carson insists more needs to be done to protect teachers carrying out their jobs.
He warned there is now an epidemic of classroom violence across Scotland due to the SNP Government’s failure to tackle the issue.
The Galloway and West Dumfries MSP said: “Schools should be safe and secure places to learn yet the horrifying incidents across Scotland tell a different story.
“Children deserve to learn in environments free from violence and disruption and our teachers deserve to feel safe in their place of work.
“Our schools must be given the resources they need to ensure there is always a zero tolerance approach to violence in our classrooms.
He added: “But our teachers will still feel left in the dark and desperate for answers as the SNP education secretary Jenny Gilruth continues to be missing in action.
“Shamefully she would rather pass the buck onto councils and the police instead of assigning a proper plan to stamp out this growing problem.”
The Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP is also worried that children who are being bullied are often made to suffer more than the perpetrator.
Mr Carson explained: “They are often forced to sit on their own, go for lunch on their own, while the pupils doing the bullying do not appear to have changes to their school days.
“While I suspect this may be for the child’s own safety, there is a danger it will affect their mental health and wellbeing even more.
“But I think it is something that we must look at as a matter of urgency and seek to find a proper solution to the bullying problem in our schools.”
The local constituency MSP raised his concerns after his Scottish Conservative colleague Liam Kerr raised a topical question on classroom violence against teachers after an alarming 25 per cent rise in Aberdeen.
Previosly Scotland’s largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland published findings, based on survey results from 875 schools, showing that 82 per cent of schools were reporting violent or aggressive incidents each week.
Some 72 per cent said the amount of violence and aggression from pupils had grown in the last four years.
Physical violence towards a teacher was the most common type of violence and aggression in primary and special education, while verbal abuse was the most common in secondary schools.
Only 11 per cent of schools said teachers felt supported by their employer after pupil-on-teacher violence but 26 per cent of EIS teachers felt they were not backed.
