Those applying for jobs in schools will now be forced to submit a self-declaration about any convictions or investigations, according to a legal notice that came into force yesterday as part of efforts to step up protection of students.
The legal notice - Recruitment, Initial Training and Continuous Professional Development of Personnel and Protection of Minors in Compulsory Education Regulations – stipulates that the policy would include measures on how schools should deal with abuse claims, whether this occurs in the school or outside.
Each school will also have a person assigned to put forward any issues related to the children’s well-being and serve as the first “port of call” in cases where there are problems with it.
The procedures, through interviews by competent personnel, the presentation of a clean police conduct are standard practices in most schools
Newly-engaged personnel would also be receiving the necessary training and mentoring on child protection issues, while information sessions would be provided to “any person working directly with minors within the school premises”. Such training would be offered to anyone working with children, even if the person is not a school employee.
Those applying for a job in any school must fill in a self-declaration form to disclose any convictions, cautions, court orders and reprimands together with “relevant past or pending investigations that may affect their suitability to work with minors”.
Applications must also convey the school’s zero tolerance approach to child abuse and harm, the legal notice states.
The teachers’ union said that the legal notice “affirms practices which are already being carried out by the great majority of educational institutions.”
“The selection procedures through interviews carried out by competent personnel, the presentation of a clean police conduct, together with induction and mentoring of new personnel are standard practices in most schools,” a spokesman for the Malta Union of Teachers, MUT, told this newspaper.
The majority of schools, the spokesman said, already adhered to standard child protection policies, carrying out sessions on child protection issues as well as having a designated person to put forward children’s well-being.
“The Legal Notice enforces these practices in all schools while introducing a new requirement from applicants in the form of a self-declaration about any convictions or investigations together with other recruitment practices such as referencing methods.”
The spokesman said that MUT would be evaluating the implications of the legal notice further, to establish the “impact on the already substantial loads placed on heads of schools, in particular those at Church and independent schools”.
claire.caruana@timesofmalta.com