Vienna: The decision by a headmaster in Austria to ban kissing from his school made front-page news today as outraged pupils and politicians slammed the move as medieval and excessive.
Siegfried Biermair, the head of a school in Gunskirchen, Upper Austria, sent a letter to parents on Monday informing them of the kissing ban after teachers complained that the kissing rituals of some girls were getting out of hand.
Instead of simply greeting each other with a light peck on the cheeks between lessons, some 14-year-olds had taken to "theatrically falling into each other s arms and kissing each other on the mouth, sometimes very intimately and for many minutes," Biermair complained.
Such behaviour "could lead to undesirable developments" and boys could also start demanding kisses, he argued.
So, at a meeting, teachers and a number of parents had voted unanimously in favour of a kissing ban.
However, the move was immediately slammed as "ridiculous" and "excessive", not only by pupils, but by politicians as well.
"The ban is not only totally disproportionate, it's also completely counterproductive," said Matthias Hansy, head of Austria's Pupil's Union in a statement.
"There are much more pressing problems at our schools, such as the increasing trend towards violence," Hansy said.
Another pupils group, "Aktion Kritischer Schueler" or AKS, said the ban reflected an "outdated, medieval world-view".
AKS urged Upper Austria's schools minister, Fritz Enzenhofer, to overturn the ban immediately and the group said it would organise a "kiss-in" protest in Enzenhofer's office next week if he refused.
