Vic teachers to watch for extremism
Teachers have been told to look out for the radicalisation of teenagers in Victorian schools after a fatal shooting.
A team of Education Department officers will reportedly to be appointed to tell police about "unusual behaviour" in schools, including signs students could be indoctrinated into extremist groups.
It comes weeks after terror suspect Numan Haider, 18, stabbed two police officers before he was shot dead outside a Melbourne police station.
Premier Denis Napthine said it was up to the entire community to be alert during a time of "heightened awareness".
"Within our schools I would hope that all members of a school community are aware, and alert police and appropriate authorities if they believe there are people acting within that school," Dr Napthine told reporters on Sunday.
"(Those people) may be causing (students) to be subject to extremists and potentially enable those young people to perhaps become captured by those extremists.
Victoria Police community engagement officer Ron Gardner said the Haider case had sparked the plan, but it was aimed at all forms of radicalisation.
"What we're looking at is radicalisation in all of its extremes, be it political, be it social, be it whatever," Inspector Gardner told Fairfax Media.
The team has started work in Melbourne's southeast, where Haider lived, but is expected to expanded to other Victorian regions.
Haider had his passport cancelled and had been seen with an Islamic State flag at a shopping centre in the days leading up to his death.
