Entire classrooms will have to accompany one child to the bathroom if safety recommendations by the Education Ministry are taken on board, the teachers’ union has said.

The legal letter drafted by a legal consultant to the ministry and sent to the Foundation for Educational Services, which is responsible for the State summer schools, informed staff that “at no time are students to be left unaccompanied”.

MUT president Kevin Bonello interpreted this to mean that since classrooms only had one teacher, he or she would not be able to accompany students to the bathroom without abandoning the rest of the class.

The safety recommendations were issued after a three-year-old boy slipped out of Skolasajf in Fgura and was found crying in the middle of a main road. 

Mr Bonello, however, told Times of Malta the union had written its own letter calling for a reform of the “unmerited” legal responsibility placed on teaching professionals.

Instead of having teachers abandon the classroom, Mr Bonello said the government should employ hall monitors to supervise children who leave the room.

More in Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium.

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