Ms Eileen Salmon:

I just want to answer the comments Deputy Martin addressed to me. I am not against students being on boards of management. I have great time for student councils. In my own school, I was very involved with them. Sometimes, one has to hold them back from wanting to be too stringent about things. They can be very opinionated. However, I do think that there are certain areas that they should not be involved in, such as areas of employment, discipline and finance.

I think the Deputy implied that there may be people on boards of management who are unsuitable. Boards of management are very well structured. The members are the nominees of trustees. In our sector, we have joint trustees. The ETB is one of our trustees. It appoints people. The ETB in the area will appoint three members to boards of management in our schools. Our religious or non-religious trustees, be they Educate Together or a religious order, appoint another three members. There are then two parent nominees and two teacher nominees. The principal is a non-voting member of the board. A lot of thought goes into it. There is a three-year rotation for boards of management. I do not think any of us believe that there are people who are just chucked in there because they want to be. They are usually chosen because they are very suitable. Being on a selection committee is a different role altogether to being on a board of management. Trustees will decide who their representatives on selection committees are going to be. One does not mean the other. Just because someone is on a board of management does not mean he or she is on a selection committee. A lot of thought goes into that. An awful lot of us are confident in our boards. As an organisation, ACCS provides training and advice to boards of management. ACCS is always there to give that advice.

As I said, I am not against students being on boards, but I would see them being involved in particular areas and not involved in others.

Disinterested parents can be the bane of a school's life. However, I believe that the charter would give very good information to parents. It would be a charter for them to read in order to understand what the role of the school is for them. However, the charter cannot be out there without parents in the reading of it realising that they have responsibilities as well. It is in the more socially-deprived areas that one finds less interested parents. It usually not that they are not interested but it is that they do not actually have the confidence to be involved. Home-school community liaison officers in DEIS schools and things like that can help parents become more involved.

Much of the charter could be used to bring parents on board and build confidence.