DAR AL HARB - GERMANY: "RIGHT NOW WE CAN'T ASSURE PARENTS THAT THEIR CHILDREN ARE SAFE"

A German first: Schools hire security guards

Berlin (dpa) - Private security guards are to be hired at schools in a tough Berlin district from August to keep teenagers in check after a series of schoolyard brawls and attacks by ex-pupils, the municipality said Friday.

The ethnically mixed Neukoelln district will pay the guards to rush to trouble spots in the district's 76 schools, although teachers say this should be the job of the police.

It will be the first time in Germany that private guards have been employed in schools.

Heinz Buschkowsky, the district mayor, said, "Right now we can't assure parents that their children are safe."

A year ago, teachers admitted they were powerless to check fighting at one school where young Arabs were the main ethnic group, and police began checking pupils at the school gate for knives and other weapons.

This month a teacher was beaten up at another school by a former pupil. Buschkowsky said there had been 53 violent invasions of district schools in the past two years by persons who were not pupils at the time.



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1) A German first: Schools hire security guards