I am sad and uncomfortable at having to raise this issue in this manner. I only do so after exhausting every possibility of resolving the difficulties at local level. The difficulties concern a school in Bray which operate under the aegis of the vocational education committee. This is an excellent school with an excellent academic record. If he looks at the files in his Department the Minister of State will find that I have made many representations on behalf of the school. I am not, therefore, passing judgment on the teaching quality or on the quality of academic performance. I am, however, asking that judgment be brought to bear on the manner in which reasonable complaints from constituents are being handled by this school — the name of which is known to the Minister — and also, and more specifically, by the statutory authority, the Bray vocational education committee.
To give the Minister two small examples. The first involves a man and woman who are well known to me. Their son — I will use the initial S to identify him — was attending the school. On the first day of term he breached the school's dress code in that he wore an earring. This was an oversight which the parents accepted as such. They were willing to apologise for it because they believe in strong discipline and a dress code and they would wish to be associated with the school's wish to regulate the performance of its pupils.
The child removed the offending earring from his ear and handed it over to the principal, who threw it into the dustbin. When, at 5 o'clock, the child asked for the return of the earring, again apologising — I know the boy in question; he is a well reared young man — he was told that the earring was on its way to the dump.
When the parents made further contact with the school, they were treated, in my view, in an extraordinary way; the Garda were actually called. A formal complaint was lodged with the board of management, subsequently; with the vocational education committee and the matter has shuttled back and forth between the vocational education committee and the board of management for months. The point which really irritates me about this particular case is that when I detailed the case to the Department of Education my correspondence was sent to the vocational education committee in Bray, where it became a matter of some mirth among vocational education committee members. In my view, that is not the way to handle a proper complaint.
In the second case, for which I can provide details, involving a Mr. and Mrs. D where after the treatment of one of their children over a period of time they had to remove their children from the school, the couple made complaints to the vocational education committee. In both cases the couples were called before the vocational education committee which looked into the cases and referred the matter back to the board of management.
The issue I am raising here is that there is no proper procedure, in my view, to handle well structured complaints. I am not a person who would handle a complaint against a school, certainly not one that I believed was in any way vexatious or trivial. However, the problem here is that there is a body of evidence — about 17 cases available to me — where complaints have not been handled properly. These complaints have been handled in an in-house way by the board of management, on which of course the principal plays a major part, and, subsequently, in a dismissive manner, to say the least, by Bray vocational education committee.
Individually, these may amount to trivial matters, but collectively there is a body of evidence here to suggest matters are not as they should be. I ask the Minister, through the Minister of State, to encourage the vocational education committee to put in place some proper process for handling complaints.
In one set of complaints a number of teachers made letters available to the Department. Those letters were actually sent to the vocational education committee, and from the there back to the school. In my view, that will impact on the career of those young teachers. The letters were handed over because people believed there would be an impartial examination of a series of minor matters, which have now escalated to the point where this must be raised as an issue in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
I formally ask the Minister to instruct that a member of the inspectorate meet with the vocational education committee in Bray — incidentally, I find myself uncomfortable because I have a good relationship with the vocational education committee — the chief executive officer and the parents in question and put in place a means whereby these particular complaints can be handled.
I have one other request. I ask the Minister to ensure that the representative of the National Parents' Council is treated appropriately on the vocational education committee. A member of the secondary branch of the National Parents' Council is on the vocational education committee and, in my view, the treatment of her is absolutely reprehensible. She is kept in the dark, excluded and treated in a way which borders on the abusive, and that is not right. Parents have a big stake in education. This Minister and previous Ministers recognised that and were prepared to encourage vocational education committees to be representative of all sides, including parents, and that is not what is happening in Bray.
There is a series of incidents, 17 in all. I do not want to delay the Minister or put individually trivial items before the House, but there is a body of evidence here to suggest that all is not well in the Bray vocational education committee. Certainly, these complaints, which arise from one particular college, have not been handled properly. Parents are being humiliated; they are being treated in a way which is dismissive, and the National Parents' Council is not getting the kind of representation it should. In effect, all of this is being handled in a very immature way which reflects badly on the vocational education committee. It will create a gulf between the vocational education committee and the parents, who, together with the children, are the most important partners in education. I know the Minister will share my concerns on this matter, so I ask him to instruct a member of the inspectorate to go to Bray and put the matter right.
