The issue of suspension and expulsion from school can be and often is a traumatic event for all of those concerned - pupils, parents, teachers and school management. The current draft plans of the Department of Education and Science with regard to an appeals mechanism for such events might first glance make it appear that no mechanism to appeal such decisions existed heretofore.
However there have always been local structures in existence that allow for an appeal to trustees/patrons of schools in the event that parents considered a decision of the school to be unfair and unreasonable. The new appeals mechanism provided for under the Education Act adds another layer of appeal to those already existing and may only be utilised if all other options and mechanisms have been exhausted.
Managing modern schools is a complex and increasingly demanding task. The raft of legislation that we have witnessed over the last 10 years and the continuing emergence of new legislation and directives have impacted very heavily on school management. The Education Act has been a welcome development, providing as it does for the first time a legislative and statutory framework with which to underpin our educational system. It has also made new demands on schools, and particularly on managers, in ensuring that the objectives of the Act are met through the establishment of new structures and procedures.
The Education Welfare Act which was passed in June and which is due to come into effect over the next two years also provides for further structures and procedures to be established in schools for the welfare and protection of students. These arrangements are indeed welcome in their aim of improving the delivery of education to the students in our schools. The burden of ensuring their implementation falls on school management. School principals are faced with a wide set of tasks that were not envisaged a decade ago. However, the Department of Education and Science has not provided the necessary resources to ensure an effective implementation of these new measures.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB) is concerned about a number of aspects of the Department's proposals. The JMB believes that every opportunity to resolve the matter at local level must first be exhausted. There has been an increasing tendency to try to resolve these matters through legal channels by some parties. This is a negative development and can only lead to both sides becoming more entrenched.
In determining the proper course of action and the necessary sanctions to be imposed, school management is often faced with difficult choices in suspension or expulsion cases. These decisions, contrary to popular belief, are not taken lightly by principals or others responsible for managing the school. The rights of the majority of people to an education free from disruption by disorderly conduct by an individual or a minority of individuals is a factor in deciding the best course of action to be taken. The flexibility to make a judgment call by the professional in the field is a necessary corollary of this.
Of course all decisions have to be fair and reasonable to all concerned. It is the role of management to balance the rights of the individual student with those of the student body as whole, the teachers and the parents who entrust their children to the school in loco parentis for the duration of the school day. The JMB is only too aware from dealing with schools on this issue that these decisions are not arrived at lightly or on a whim but only when all avenues are exhausted. Sometimes school principals have to resist pressure from a number of quarters to make too quick a decision without having first fully explored all the options or the implications of the decision.
The Education Act provides for the protection of school ethos and a diversity of educational provision. Equally the school has to have regard to its obligations under health and safety legislation when establishing its enrolment policy.
This new appeal mechanism has been referred to as an independent one. While the existing appeals mechanism may not be necessarily independent in the strict sense of the term, they nonetheless employ objective procedures.
Change requires finely tuned adjustments to strike just the right note. The Minister and the Department of Education and Science rightly trumpet many of the initiatives they have introduced. Indeed we welcome many of the reforms that have been introduced over the last number of years. They form part of a genuine attempt to remediate, reform and restructure our education system.
The list is indeed long - Whole School Evaluation, Education Act, Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, IT 2000, LCA, LCVP, Transition Year, PCW, Partnership 2000, Commission on the Points System, Commission on School Funding, Teaching Council, Psychological Services, CSPE, SPHE, to name but a few.
However, there is another list: collect school keys; take assembly; check latecomers; supervise corridors; set clocks; investigate broken windows, etc. There is a huge dissonance between this routine work of the school principal and the day-to-day travails involved and the expectations and requirements that the list of initiatives previously mentioned place on school management.
There is a widening gap between the raft of reforms and changes dribbling down from national level and the ability of school management to implement them. Schools require the operational mechanisms and structures to properly implement these measures.
These are an essential requirement - not to make the management job easier. They are required to enable us to do the jobs we have to do and do them better. The Department of Education and Science must recognise that schools cannot be expected any more to implement measures without the necessary mechanisms to do so.
But all too often they are formulated at a macro level with little or no consideration for their impact at the micro level of the individual institution. What is considered important are the changes themselves and their inherent and intrinsic worth as stand-alone issues. What we are in danger of ending up with is a body of reform and work that looks impressive from national, European and even international points of view, but which is being laid down layer after layer on a system and structure that was never designed to deal with such change.
Changes and reforms cost. They require resourcing and back-up, not in the episodic, fire brigade and sticking plaster approach that is the feature of much of current attempts but in planned, well thought and well financed ways.
This requires planning, consultation and putting a value on the experience and expertise of the practitioners. It requires real partnership. It requires a change of mindset among civil servants that is not suspicious of the motives of those of us who have an equally strong and vibrant commitment to the system and in particular to the most important people in the system, the children.
The JMB has told the Minister and his officials that it is necessary and indeed long overdue for the department to put in place the resources and structures to equip schools to deal with all the many demands that are placed on them.
George O'Callaghan is general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, which represents the majority of secondary school managers.
