Teachers demand total security

Thai News Agency

The Southern Teachers Association has proposed that armed security personnel be stationed at every school in the four southern border provinces following the killing of three teachers in Narathiwat on Monday.

Association president Wicharn Athikaphun attended a meeting at the Ministry of Education Ministry in Bangkok on Tuesday, and afterward told a press conference that the killing of teachers Monday dampens teacher morale in the south.

The deaths illustrated that the insurgents can now reach any staff in any school with impunity, despite teachers taking every precaution and remaining careful and alert.

Before the semester started, teachers met with security officials, with the understanding that security would be improved. However, the existing measures are not effective, so teachers called for an additional four measures to improve the situation, he said.

Among four measures, they called for officials' aggressive operation to prevent attacks on teachers. They demand 2 to 5 security personnel on duty at each school from 7 am to 4 pm.

If local security personnel are inadequate for the protection of some 1,000 schools in Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla, they require the government or the Council for National Security to deploy reinforcements.

Unarmed defense volunteers are guarding schools but they can't do much to protect teachers. Police and military personnel are needed to make schools a safety zone for teachers, Mr. Wicharn said.

Teachers also agree that the government can apply a reconciliatory approach to those who want to reconcile with the government, but said the authorities should respond in kind to those who adopt violence.

The Southern Teachers Association will raise the issue of attacks on teachers in Thailand's south at the Asean Council of Teachers to be held July 6-9 in Singapore.

The Asean forum, in which Thailand's neighbours including Malaysia and Indonesia will also join, may come up with an idea to quell violence in the deep south, said Wicharn. (TNA)