Don’t expect schools to stop knife crime when they cannot even afford to teach

Analysis: Schools have been partly blamed for surge in horrifying street violence – but how much is it their fault, asks Eleanor Busby

Secondary school pupils account for 81 per cent of permanent exclusions (PA)

At the moment, it seems as though not a day goes past without a murderous knife attack – usually with both perpetrators and victims heartbreakingly young.

The relentless tide of violence, and the grief-stricken families left in its wake, has prompted a great deal of political finger-pointing, and schools have not escaped.

It is far from the first time teachers have been called upon to heal the ills of society (or blamed for them). And it won’t be the last.