Teachers’ union warns safeguards have failed to keep up with technology

UNION LEADERS have complained that too often nothing is done to tackle pupils who use social media and mobile phones to target abuse at teachers.

Margaret Smith, president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, spoke out about the “sinister development” over the past decade of youngsters using social networking websites and mobile phones to attack teachers.

This could see school staff subjected to “verbal abuse, threats and ridicule” with females “often subjected to grossly offensive comments regarding their personal lives which can be deemed nothing other than sexual harassment”, she said.

“Too often nothing is done to combat this behaviour and pupils believe that their conduct is without consequence.”

She raised the issue as the union accused the Scottish Government of complacency about classroom indiscipline.

“A sinister development over the past decade or so has been the coordinated targeting of some teachers,” Ms Smith said.

“Social media networks, mobile phones and other technologies to which pupils have access make it so much easier to make a teacher’s life intolerable and his or her job impossible.”