Teachers admit fears over hidden CCTV cameras

Aug 19 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

ALMOST a quarter of teachers are worried about "hidden" surveillance cameras in their schools, new research has showed.

A survey of nearly 250 primary and secondary school teachers found more than eight in 10 (84.6%) had CCTV in their school and more than half (52.9%) said it made them feel safer.

But 23.4% were concerned that there may be cameras hidden in school buildings which staff and pupils were not aware of.

The survey, conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, found 46.7% of teachers said they would behave differently if they knew CCTV was operating in their classroom. they were teaching in.

Nearly two-thirds said they did not know what security measures their school had for CCTV cameras in terms of storing the data and restricting their use.

The general consensus was that, while CCTV had its benefits, classroom surveillance was an invasion of privacy and disrupted education.

While 97.6% said CCTV was primarily used for security purposes, half (49.5%) said it was used for monitoring pupil behaviour.

An additional 16% said it was used for controlling student behaviour and 10.4% said CCTV was used to control truancy.

Seven in 10 (72.6%) said it was used to monitor and control vandalism.

Tonia Matthews, a teacher at Trinity secondary school in West Berkshire, said: "Students feel secure to know if there has been an incident, i.e bullying. We can then go back and look what happened."

The overwhelming majority of those questioned (76.7%) said surveillance cameras were positioned at the entrance to their school, but almost 10% said they had cameras in their school’s toilets.

More than 7% said they had cameras in classrooms.

And more than 15% said they had over 20 cameras in their school.

But more than half (50.2%) said they did not think pupils behaved differently if they knew they were being filmed.

Almost three in 10 (27.9%) said they did think pupils’ behaviour changed in the presence of cameras.

Teachers were asked for their opinions on streaming images from classrooms to controlled groups such as parents over the internet.

More than four in 10 (42.3%) said they thought it was a development that should be prohibited.

In contrast, a third (32.3%) said it was a useful development that should only be used in limited circumstances.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of ATL, said: "No one really knows enough about the use of CCTV in schools - it’s a very new issue. We have set up a working group to look into the use of CCTV and produce ATL guidelines on best practice for schools and colleges throughout the UK."