By Andrew Argo, education reporter

THE SCOTTISH Executive is taking a tough line on indiscipline in schools but is not turning them into fortresses.

A spokesman for the Executive was responding yesterday to repeated reports that security guards are to be posted in schools across the country to tackle the rising tide of misbehaviour.

The Executive insisted that such uniformed protection personnel are not to be patrolling corridors and playgrounds.

“We have made funds available for councils to employ support workers to act in secondary schools in the same way that playground supervisors are employed in primary schools,” the spokesman said.

“The support workers are there to help teachers and not to act as security guards. We do not want to turn our schools into fortresses.

“Where support workers have been employed, the experience has been successful. The money to pay for them came from the £10 million a year we made available to carry out the recommendations of the discipline task group back in 2001.

“This money is still being awarded, and it is up to councils to decide how they want to use the money.”

Dundee City Council has used its allocation to employ support workers in its secondary schools to assist teachers in tackling bad behaviour. The council is monitoring the success of its scheme.

Scottish Education Minister Peter Peacock said, “Tackling bad behaviour in schools has been a top priority for me, and I have taken action on a number of fronts.

“I recognise that it is not only in the classroom where indiscipline occurs but in other parts of the school, too.”

Last year the number of reported cases of violence against teachers and pupils in Scotland’s schools increased to about 7000 incidents. No fewer than 1500 pupils were suspended.

Mr Peacock ordered a review of the figures, questioning their reliability. He believed there were differences in the way that councils approached the reporting of incidents and collected data.

He was adamant that Scotland’s schools were not battlegrounds, and said that close analysis of the statistics did not show evidence that violent incidents were increasing.

A pilot scheme has started in schools serving deprived areas of Glasgow where police are being stationed on site to tackle bullying and work with parents, social workers and children’s reporters to turn youngsters away from delinquency.