There has been a worrying increase in the number of children carrying knives to schools. Thousands of weapons including samurai swords, axes and air guns have been seized from schools. Police forces in England and Wales have released figures showing knife crime is on the rise. A total of 1369 items were recovered by police in schools in the year 2016-2017. That is a rise of 20% over previous year. Children as young as 5 years old take knives to schools. They learn from their siblings and peer groups. The fear of being hurt may be one of the reasons why your child may be reluctant to go to school. These incidents are probably taking place in state schools rather than in independent schools.
Many of us Asians, particularly the Gujaratis, do not have much faith in the state education system and hence we scrape and save and send our children to private schools where standards are higher and the pass rates surpass that of state schools. Also in private schools, security is much more tighter and children are properly supervised all the time. We also know that to get better propects in the employment market and to get a better standard of living, our children need to be better qualified than the rest. This can only be achieved if the children feel safe to go to school where they are not bullied or threatened with knives and could pay full attention to studies..
Dinesh Sheth
Newbury Park, Ilford
