The number of complaints made against teachers with the profession’s regulatory body here last year increased by 35 per cent to 58.
That is according to the annual report of the Teaching Council, which also records that three teachers were last year removed from the council’s teachers’ register and confirmed by the High Court following fitness-to-teach inquiries.
In total, allegations were proven against five teachers in fitness-to-teach inquiries and the sanctions in the remaining two cases were ‘admonishment’ and ‘censure’.
In all nine fitness-to-teach inquiries were held and in the outcome of two other inquiries two complaints were dismissed at a preliminary stage, while no findings were made in a further two cases.
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The 58 complaints lodged with the Teaching Council in the 12 months to the end of March last year compared with 43 complaints lodged in the previous 12 months.
The report discloses that 45 complaints concerned conduct/behaviour including physical abuse/assault, verbal assault and sexual/intimate contact with a student or bullying, discriminatory behaviour and inappropriate social media usage.
A further six complaints were made concerning competence/performance/practice, while another two complaints were made in relation to alleged criminal convictions.
A further seven complains were received under the heading of dishonesty/professional integrity, while 54 complaints concerned an alleged breach of code of professional conduct for teachers.
A further 15 complaints were received relating to special educational needs.
Twenty-five complaints were made against primary schoolteachers and 27 against post-primary teachers.
The report shows that parents were the source of 39 of the 58 complaints, with a further 13 coming via the executive committee of the Teaching Council where the complaint had come to the attention of the council via the media, for example.
Ten of the 58 complaints last year were refused by the director last year as they were “deemed frivolous, vexatious, or made in bad faith”.
The investigating committee is a screening committee that considers and investigates complaints received about registered teachers.
The annual report records that there were 7,755 new registrants to the register last year with a total of 122,743 on the register at the end of March last, which compares with 118,432 on the register at the end of March 2023.
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