A Ministry of Education inquiry will establish whether school transport boarding arrangements are adequately supervised. This follows the case of a seven-year-old Eritrean boy who went missing from the state primary school in Marsascala some days ago.
A frantic search by the boy’s mother, the police and the school headmaster lasted four hours before the student, in his school uniform, was finally found at a coffee shop in Msida, several kilometres away, safe but tired. It was the cafe owner who sensibly alerted the police when he noticed nobody had picked up the boy after an hour.
A Ministry of Education spokeswoman rather disingenuously sought to allay parents’ concerns by insisting there had been “no basis for parents to worry”. Presumably, what she meant to say was that although the boy who was in the school’s care could have been badly injured, kidnapped or worse, very fortunately in this case nothing untoward had happened.
The crux of the matter lies on the fact that the school has a duty of care to the child and in this case – for whatever reason, which the inquiry has been tasked to establish – it failed to provide it.
The law imposes a legal duty on teachers in schools to protect the safety and well-being of pupils in their care.
There is one overriding factor giving rise to a duty of care. If the teacher knows, or should have known, that his or her acts or omissions may cause injury to a person in his/her care who is not in a position to protect his/her own interests, there is a responsibility giving rise to a duty of care. It is an obligation recognised by law to avoid any conduct fraught with unreasonable risk of danger to others.
Children stand in need of care and supervision and their parents cannot effectively provide this when their offspring are attending school. Those who are then actually in charge of the children – their teachers – must provide such care. Teachers owe to each of their pupils under their control and supervision a duty to take reasonable care for their safety. Of course, it is not a duty of insurance against harm but a responsibility to take reasonable care to avoid harm being suffered by the pupil.
The bottom line is that the imposition of such a duty is that there is a need for a child of immature age to be protected against the conduct of others or, indeed, of him, which may cause injury. This is coupled with the fact that, during school hours, the child is beyond the control and protection of his parents. He is placed under the control of the schoolteacher who is in the position to exercise authority over him and to afford him, in the exercise of reasonable care, protection from injury.
In the case of the Eritrean boy at Marsascala, it appears that the incident occurred during the school transport boarding operation, a notoriously weak link in the whole process of bringing children to and from school.
The inquiry needs to establish what procedures were in place for boarding children on the transport. Who specifically was in charge? What systems were in place to ensure numbers onto and off the transport were properly checked?
This incident ended happily. It could so easily have been a different story. Somebody must be held responsible to ensure it does not happen again and the lessons learnt should lead to new and enforceable guidelines.