Increasing regulations and laws were eating into the independence of school managers and could be a disaster for schools, a solicitor warned the conference of the Joint Managerial Body yesterday.
Mr Ian O'Herlihy, of Arthur O'Hagan solicitors, said the role of school managers was becoming more and more regulated by the Department of Education. In voluntary secondary schools there was traditionally a sense of ownership, but this was being undermined by "creeping regulation".
The regulations were eating into this culture of independence. He said the State was not the best body to run schools, and education should be left to the educators.
Mr O'Herlihy is one of the most experienced solicitors in the education sector and has represented schools in many important cases.
He said Section 29 of the Education Act constrained how schools could apply discipline. In the past, if a child was expelled the only recourse was the courts, but now there was an appeals mechanism.
These appeals bodies could overturn a school's decision and order the pupil to be taken back, he said. Irish schools needed to avoid what happened in Britain where the government was trying to re-empower local school managements.
He said there were already existing and almost impossible burdens on school principals, and the regulations were making this worse. "Whatever about the laudable aims of these policies, no proper negotiation seems to have taken place on how school managers are going to practically implement these things," Mr O'Herlihy said.
Many regulations should be statutory functions carried out by the Department, not schools, he said.