Chantal Celis was reacting to publicity given to a video-clip uploaded to YouTube in which a teacher from a school in Bruges apparently strikes a student after a snowball fight. Teachers’ representatives said the Bruges teacher was provoked by the students, one of whom filmed the incident on a mobile phone.

Celis is director of the Mariadal technical school, where last year a teacher was filmed in a brick-laying class turning a boy upside down and ducking his head into a bucket of mortar. That incident, she said, later turned out to be a set up by students to provide an entertaining video clip.

“I’ve been in education for 30 years, and it’s never been as bad as it is today,” Celis said. “Young people think anything goes.”

Students edit the films to give the desired impression but fail to show the events leading up to the incident, she said. “For that reason we are considering putting cameras in classrooms that film everything. We’re currently gathering information on all the possibilities, although we find it very regrettable that we have to resort to such drastic measures.”

“The decision on whether to put cameras in classrooms is for the school themselves to take,” commented education minister Pascal Smet. “We don’t want to treat all schools the same. There are problem schools that take initiatives to tackle their situation, and, if the school takes such a decision, we have to understand where it comes from.”