Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, to thank the Senator for raising this issue. The Minister, Deputy O'Sullivan, is in the Dáil answering oral questions. I welcome the opportunity to address the role and clarify the position of the Department of Education and Skills in the complaint procedure process for secondary schools.

The Senator will be aware that, under the Education Act 1998, legally, all schools are managed by the school board of management on behalf of the school's patrons or trustees or education and training board, ETB, known as the management authority. It is the management authority that employs the school's teachers and other staff members. In ETB schools, the ETB is the employer. The school principal manages the school on a day to day basis.

Accordingly, whereas the Department of Education and Skills provides funding and policy direction for schools neither the Minister nor the Department has legal powers to instruct schools to follow a particular course of direction with regard to individual complaint cases or to investigate individual complaints except where the complaint involves a refused enrolment, expulsion or suspension in accordance with section 29 of the 1998 Education Act.

In dealing with parental complaints, the Department's role is to clarify for parents how their grievances and complaints against the school can be progressed. Where parents feel that the school's board of management has failed to investigate or adequately investigate their complaint, they should contact the Ombudsman for Children. The Office of the Ombudsman for Children may independently investigate complaints about schools recognised with the Department of Education and Skills, provided the parent has firstly and fully followed the school's complaints procedures.Section 28 is the section of the Education Act 1998 that provides for parental complaints in schools. It expresses a desirability of determining appeals and resolving grievances in the school.

The Minister for Education and Skills is not satisfied with the current provisions of section 28 and plans to revise it to provide in law for a parent and student charter. Changing how schools engage with, listen and respond to parent concerns will be an important part of the charter. Providing parents with the rationale for any decision is important. If schools help parents to understand the basis for a decision, they are more likely to accept the fairness of decisions.

A core objective of the charter is to shift away from reacting to problems only after they give arise to grievances. The emphasis will be on improving the day-to-day experience students and their parents can expect from schools in order that grievances will not arise or will be resolved quickly and informally. As a result, the need to resort to a formal grievance process should be much reduced. The Minister's intention is to amend section 28 of the Education Act 1998 to require every school to have a parent and student charter in accordance with principles set down in legislation that will set a national standard. Her plan is to have this change introduced during the passage of the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2015.