Teachers who have children’s welfare at heart should have nothing to fear from new proposed recruitment and selection procedures, according to a spokesman for the foundation behind the proposals.
“This is not some kind of witch-hunt against teachers or anyone who looks after kids,” said Winston Zahra of the Lisa Marie Foundation.
“We believe that the vast majority of educators have the welfare of children at heart and are an important pillar in the overall upbringing and education of kids. But there is a small minority with ulterior motives, and these proposals are designed to reduce the risks of this minority getting close to our children.
“Nobody should be upset by that, because all we’re trying to do is to put processes in place which will ultimately protect kids.”
The foundation’s set of 17 proposals, which form the basis of a White Paper opened for consultation by the Education Ministry last week, follow the case of teenager Lisa Marie Zahra, who was found dead at Dingli Cliffs in March 2014.
Her former teacher is currently facing charges of murder, assisted suicide, defilement of minors, possessing indecent images of a minor and abusing a position of trust.
The proposals have met with general support but have also drawn criticism from some education professionals.
In particular, the Malta Union of Teachers has described as “humiliating” a proposal requiring applicants for teaching positions to present certification to prove they are not registered sex offenders.
We’ve had cases where teachers are employed on the back of a single phone call
Mr Zahra, a well-known hotelier, explained that the process for schools to obtain access to the Sex Offenders’ Register was currently extremely cumbersome and costly, such that some schools avoided it altogether.
Moreover, an applicant’s police conduct certificate did not always flag up all past offences.
“Our main proposal is to make access to the register easy and not put onerous costs on the institution. This confirmation could be part of the police conduct certificate but we have to make sure that the conduct certificate captures everything that is relevant.”
Rejecting suggestions that the proposals put a presumption of guilt on applicants, Mr Zahra said the choice was between reacting to situations or taking proactive steps to prevent them and protect children’s well-being.
“We’ve had cases where teachers are employed on the back of a single phone call, cases where people are operating without a warrant and cases where teachers-in-training are put into classrooms unsupervised.”
Drawing a comparison with the rigorous referencing and due diligence process in the financial services industry, he said more needed to be done to reduce the number of people “slipping through the net”. In some institutions, oversight was still very weak and, where problems arose, the focus was on getting the teacher out of the institution, with little thought of whether he could end up doing the same thing elsewhere.
Mr Zahra said the foundation is therefore proposing the creation of a single national employment file for educators, which can be referenced by all schools, as well as eliminating compromise agreements when an educator’s position is terminated due to allegations of misconduct with children.
“There is a need to educate people as to what is acceptable and what is not,” Mr Zahra added.
“At the moment, there isn’t a single module in teachers’ training which tackles ethical behaviour and boundaries. Whatever we’re used to now in terms of communication processes with other people, once you enter a student-teacher setting, there are red lines that need to be respected and cannot be crossed.”