A board of inquiry found that the incident could have been avoided had the school had a security and surveillance procedure in place. Photos: Matthew Mirabelli

An 18-year-old “inexperienced” Skolasajf playworker only realised a three-year-old boy was missing from her five-student classroom 25 minutes after he asked to go to the toilet and wandered into a busy Fgura road, an inquiry found.

Three weeks earlier the same child had sneaked away from the same playworker while at the cinema without her noticing, the inquiry report added.

The damning report concluded it was clear that the Foundation for Educational Services – which handled Skolasajf, the State summer school, for the first time last summer – was not equipped to deal with the high demand of pupils.

It had employed inexperienced people, some under 18, and some who were not adequately trained to handle young children.

Also, security procedures used by the Fgura school during the scholastic year were not applied to the summer school.

The report recommended reviewing the Skolasajf system to ensure preparations for the year started earlier to allow for better planning and training.

This emerged during the final report of the board of inquiry that looked into the August 18 incident when the three-year-old boy wandered out of the Fgura summer school and was found crying and alone in the middle of Hompesch Road, a major thoroughfare.

The incident followed a barrage of criticism against Skolasajf after its start had to be postponed by a week due to staff shortages.

The report – penned by board members Peter Cordina, Bernardette Azzopardi, Godfrey Xuereb and Claire Felice Pace – was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

It concluded there were three people directly involved in the incident: the Skolasajf Fgura coordinator, the 18-year-old playworker and her 16-year-old assistant who together were responsible for the boy’s class.

It was evident that the playworker did not have the necessary experience and maturity to work with such young children

The playworker said she realised the boy was missing at about 11.30am and insisted that was the time he left the class. But at 11.03am the boy was seen, on CCTV footage, running out of the school gates that were left open.

“It was evident that the playworker did not have the necessary experience and maturity to work with such young children,” the board concluded.

Security procedures used by the Fgura school during the scholastic year were not applied to the summer school.

It noted that the boy’s mother had warned her he was “hyper” and that after the incident the playworker presented a doctor’s certificate showing she was in a state of commotion.

The inquiry found that the coordinator did not have the necessary management skills and was not familiar with the school’s safety procedures. For this reason it recommended that coordinators should be teachers who worked in the particular school.

The report said there was need for better coordination between schools and the FES to ensure a better handover of information, such as security procedures. It also noted the school head had said that for the past five years the gate was kept open during school hours because there was no bell on the outside – whenever it was fixed, it broke again.

Besides, there was no letter box on the outside so the postman would have to walk into the school, and there was no one to monitor the access areas.

The board said it was worrying to see that the gates were left open since apart from allowing children to wander outside, it also meant people with bad intentions could just walk into the school.

The Fgura school had a population of 806 pupils and, ideally, a security officer should monitor access areas. This should be the case in all large schools, the board said, recommending that the gate be replaced by one made of wrought iron – to see through it – and operated by an electronic security lock.

“It was clear the incident could have been avoided had the school had a security and surveillance procedure in place,” the board found.

Timeline

11.03am: CCTV footage shows the boy running out of the school’s main gate and into the road. He had asked to leave the class to go to the toilet.

11.10am: A passer-by takes the boy to the Fgura police station where, after establishing who the child is, the police call his parents.

11.59am: The playworker is seen on CCTV searching for the child outside the main gate.

12pm: The playworker informs the school coordinator the child never returned from the toilet.

12.10pm: The coordinator calls the FES to ask for advice and is told to call the parents.

12.20pm: The coordinator calls the boy’s mother, who tells the coordinator to go to the Fgura police station.

12.45pm: The mother arrives at school to tell the coordinator she will no longer send her son there.