Legislation Calls For Education Ombudsman

An education ombudsman is needed to protect children, parents and teachers, Fine Gael's Jim Daly has said.

Deputy Daly has introduced legislation which seeks to establish a new Education Ombudsman, to provide "additional protection" for pupils, parents and teachers.

"While the majority of school boards do their job in an impeccable manner and contribute to the wellbeing of our children, there is a serious case to be made for the establishment of an education ombudsman in this country," Deputy Daly said.

"Our schools are stuck in a historic and outdated model of Governance agreed by church and state and embodied in the current autocratic style of boards of management which are independent of scrutiny or challenge from any third party. If a parent or indeed a teacher has a difficulty with the decision of a school board, there is incredibly no avenue of appeal for the injured party save the expensive and daunting prospect of a court action.

"An education ombudsman could fill this role of appeal and provide the additional protection I believe is badly needed for children, parents and teachers alike.

"I have been inundated with complaints across the country since I first raised this issue at the Oireachtas Education Committee. I have heard cases of serious incidences of bullying either by staff or students being reported to school boards with no subsequent action taken. I have learnt of instances of boards not paying monies to providers of services despite drawing down these monies from the Department. The failure of boards to address complaints from parents about poor teaching practices, inadequate provision of subjects such as PE, unfair treatment of individual students, questionable practices when it comes to suspensions and expulsions and an array of other grievances all worthy of an independent and impartial professional adjudication.

"The Department of Education has no role whatsoever in dealing with such complaints. The Children's Ombudsman confirmed that it received over 4,000 such complaints since its inception but has only been able to initiate a full investigation into a tiny fraction of these complaints, owing to the narrow remit of its office.

"One case to reach the Children's Ombudsman really highlights the need for a separate Education Ombudsman. It involves the refusal of a school to enrol a young person due to the fact that she was pregnant. When the baby was born she again attempted to enrol and was told the school did not accept single mothers. In this particular case, the school does not have a board of management and a single person acts as the school's owner, manager and patron. There is a lack of fair and impartial process for addressing any complaint. The Ombudsman for Children investigated and found that the school should write to the young person involved to acknowledge her experience of its actions and to apologise for how she has been treated. This apology has not been forthcoming.

"In this and many other cases, there is no scope for a complaint from the decision to refuse admission to the school to be independently determined. It is high time that Ireland recognised the major weaknesses in our education system and established an Ombudsman for Education. My Bill will, for the first time in the history of the State, establish a higher authority with powers to ensure the best interests of our nation's school children are paramount at all times."

(MH/LM)