Editorial: Separate schools or units vital

Mainstream education is a fine ideal. Through the most egalitarian of processes, it insists that all pupils, whatever their individual behavioural or learning difficulties, will benefit from being placed together in a classroom. Errant or struggling pupils will be inspired by, and eager to imitate, their classmates' pursuit of academic learning and social skills. So much for theory. The outcome of this concept, in practice, has become a matter of considerable concern to teachers.

So much so that Graham Young, the president of the Secondary Principals' Association, has challenged the view that every teenager has a right to mainstream secondary education. Difficult pupils should be removed from schools to counter a rising tide of violence against teachers, he said. This provoked a strong response from the principal Youth Court judge, Andrew Becroft, who contended that if this meant separate schools for children with severe behavioural problems, there was a danger of creating "warehouses" for violence. Placing such teenagers in one location would, he said, be entirely counterproductive.

But that need not be the case if the programmes and teaching at such schools were effective. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that an appropriate curriculum and intensive individual tuition within small groups by specially trained teachers could not transform troublesome pupils and prompt their return to conventional classrooms. All because teaching would be tailored to their needs, not, as at the moment, to classmates unencumbered by their behavioural flaws.

Some of this is already happening, either in private schools or through Education Ministry funding. But it is clear the Government needs to honour its promise to make behaviour in schools a priority area for the next Budget. Any increased funding will pale beside the cost to society if the education system continues to fail difficult pupils. Inevitably, few will find jobs and many will turn to crime and, in time, be a significant charge on the Corrections Department. And the longer their problems remain unaddressed, the tougher it will be to remedy them.

This concerns not only those with behavioural difficulties, however. Their disruption of a classroom hinders the learning of every other pupil, and creates substantial problems for teachers. Aside from issues of control, they must decide how much time to devote to a difficult pupil, knowing the disproportionate extent of that attention will be at the expense of the bulk of pupils.

In effect, therefore, mainstreaming is doing a disservice to the disruptive pupils, their classmates and their teachers. Potential members of the latter group must also have been put off by harrowing episodes of physical assault. And by the likelihood that, as Mr Young suggests, they will need to be mental health specialists, and schools little more than social welfare agencies, if the problem of violent behaviour is not tackled.

Parents, equally, have the right to expect their child's education will not be spoiled by bad classroom conduct. When a survey finds that a majority of teachers believe pupil behaviour has deteriorated in the past year to such an extent that it is a health and safety issue, that becomes increasingly unlikely.

Mainstreaming has been a practical failure. Abandoning it would not be a matter of stigmatising pupils but of accepting reality. Quite simply, children with learning and behavioural difficulties need special attention, whether in separate schools or in units established within schools. There must be extra funding and resourcing for this, and for teachers who wish to specialise in this area.