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A week before Year 12 exams, Abshir heard an unexpected knock on his front door. The Canberra student was allegedly confronted by two Australian Federal Police officers who were responding to a tip off from his teacher. The teacher was concerned the young Muslim man was at risk of radicalisation. The warning signs? The teenager wrote an essay about Muslim terrorists and western intervention and travelled to the Horn of Africa to donate sporting equipment to needy children as part of a compulsory volunteering subject. He wanted to give back to the country his parents had fled as refugees. While the investigation was eventually dropped, and the student was never charged, the experience left him shaken and affected his grades. Federal and state governments have identified schools as a key battleground in the fight against radicalisation, with teachers being trained to spot potential extremists. But there are growing concerns about the effectiveness of many of these school-based countering violent extremism, or CVE, initiatives. Dr Clarke Jones, a criminologist from the Australian National University who is familiar with Abshir's case, said teachers lack the expertise to identify students at risk of radicalisation. He said these initiatives often target Muslim students who have done nothing wrong and can sever important connections between children and schools. "The parents are not consulted, the kids are automatically referred through the school to police," he said. "When a person is confronted by police it automatically creates this thinking: 'What have I done wrong? This is embarrassing, who has seen the police come to the door? Am I in trouble? Will I go to jail?'. The academic has read Abshir's essay and said he didn't find anything unusual or concerning about it. "I write material that is far more critical of overseas operations," he said. "There was nothing in the essay that would stand out to me as any indication that this young man was radicalised." The AFP and ACT Education Directorate would not comment on the case. In another incident, Dr Jones claims a high-achieving Muslim student in Melbourne's north-west was reported to police after his teacher noticed he seemed subdued. Dr Jones said police asked the teenager about whether he had ties to terrorist organisations and then later charged him with carrying a weapon after he was spotted with a ceremonial sword in a car. While the student recorded no conviction, the experience meant he missed out on the university placement of his choice because he didn't pass the required police check. "Instead of training teachers in spotting suspected extremists, schools should be focused on programs that build resilience in students," Dr Jones said. Sometimes it's more complicated. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald are aware of another case in Sydney's south where an eight-year-old Muslim boy was hauled into the principal's office after wearing his backpack on his stomach. He allegedly told a classmate he was carrying a bomb - a claim he denied. "My son was upset and hated the school after that," said his mother, who did not want to be named. "They blamed my son for something he didn't do. We came here for looking for a new life, to live better. We like Australia more than any other country because we feel more welcome here." She said the school later investigated the incident and could not find any evidence that the boy said he was carrying a bomb. The federal government has funded training to help teachers recognise the warning signs of radicalisation and supplied anti-radicalisation awareness kits to schools. Federal government fact sheets state that the warning signs of radicalisation include becoming isolated from family and friends and advocating for violence in the name of an ideological, political or religious goal. In Victoria, the state's Education Department strengthened its ties with Victoria Police following the death of 18-year-old Numan Haider, who was fatally shot in 2014 after stabbing two counter-terrorism police officers in Endeavour Hills. Under the changes, a senior staff member in each department regional office works with a Victoria Police counterpart to provide advice and support to schools. It has also rolled out radicalisation training to Victorian principals and wellbeing coordinators to help them identify students at risk of violent extremism and understand referral pathways. "Victorian government schools have a comprehensive range of programs and services that contribute to social cohesion and reduce the risk of attraction to violent extremism, a key part of which involves ensuring students remain in education," a spokesman said. In the ACT, Canberra teachers have been trained to spot students at risk of becoming violent extremists, while in NSW, staff have been provided with similar training, guidelines for antisocial and extremist behaviour and must report all suspicious student behaviour to a hotline, where information is relayed to police. Islamic Council of Victoria vice-president Adel Salman said teachers were referring students to authorities for innocuous reasons. "In our view, schools should be safe spaces for students...school staff are not best-placed to understand these issues." Dr Susie Latham, an adjunct post-doctoral fellow at Curtin University who lives in Melbourne, said it was impossible to run neutral CVE programs in a society with rampant levels of Islamophobia. "I think they makes kids very vulnerable," she said. "They are under surveillance and there is so much misunderstanding of Islam and Muslims." She has researched a similar program in the UK which mandates that public sector workers, including teachers, report suspicious behaviour. "Children have been reported for using common arabic phrases, wearing Islamic clothing, receiving toy guns from their parents and one 4-year-old was reported for drawing a cooker bomb that was later found to be a cucumber." Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said teachers were not qualified to assess whether students were at risk of radicalisation. "They are there to educate," she said. "These programs compromise the work of our staff by breaking down trust and important relationships." *name has been changed to protect the student's identity SMH/The Age

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