A proposed teaching council that would be responsible for issuing warrants for teachers and other education professionals should have access to the sex offenders register, the Malta Union of Teachers has said. 

In comments reacting to proposed changes to the Education Act, the MUT also argued that making state school heads responsible for ensuring their institutions complied with school licensing rules was wholly unrealistic.

The MUT said that it disagreed "completely" with the government proposal, given that many decisions related to school licensing were beyond the control of school heads.

The government has said it wants to amend the Education Act to regulate homeschooling and license kindergarten and learning support assistants.  

Other changes would include making it easier for courts to remove children from parents who refuse to send them to school, making state schools more self-governing and replacing an Educators' Council with a broader Council for the Teaching Profession. 

While the MUT said it backed plans to regulate LSAs and KGAs as well as the government's proposal of making the new Council responsible for the warranting of all professionals in the field, it sounded a word of caution on homeschooling. 

The MUT argued that homeschooling could lead to children isolated from the community and indoctrinated with extremist or fanatical ideas. Home education, the union argued, should be limited to children unable to attend school for serious medical or other reasons. 

MUT president Kevin Bonnello had previously expressed such reservations in an interview with The Sunday Times of Malta.