The Ulster Teachers’ Union (UTU), which has about 6,000 members in Northern Ireland schools, says that underlying issues must be tackled in order to make teachers’ and pupils’ lives safer.
UTU general secretary Avril Hall Callaghan told the union’s annual conference in Newcastle, Co Down, that action must be taken to prevent costs to the public purse.
Ms Hall Callaghan says people talk about a so-called compensation culture as a negative thing.
When a teacher is no longer able to work because of an incident at work, however, then “they must seek redress, quite simply, to survive”, she added.
“The sad fact is that we are receiving a growing number of calls from teachers who have come face-to-face with increasingly violent situations,” she explained.
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