Tougher teacher vetting rules may demand details of pending prosecutions

TEACHERS may have pending prosecutions against them considered when they are applying to be registered, under vetting procedures being considered by the Teaching Council.

Around 2,500 teachers beginning work in Irish schools next autumn must undergo background checks by gardaí before being eligible for registration. These checks will allow the Garda Central Vetting Unit (CVU) to provide the council with information on any previous convictions, but also to give details of any pending prosecutions against them.

The question of whether pending prosecutions will be considered is due to be discussed by the council’s registration committee in the coming weeks.

Under recruitment procedures being introduced by the Government, all 80,000 people working in schools will eventually need garda clearance.

The Teaching Council is circulating and collecting the vetting forms among the estimated 2,500 students of primary teacher training colleges and university higher diploma in education courses, who are likely to start their teaching careers in September.

The exercise is part of an awareness campaign by the council, which was formally established in March. As well as its primary functions, including the registration of all teachers and setting of professional conduct standards, the council has agreed to assist the Department of Education with vetting.

It will submit all the forms to the Garda CVU, whose staff was more than doubled to 30 earlier this year to cope with the widened demand for its services.

The form asks for all previous addresses at which the teacher lived, as well as their Personal Public Service (PPS) number and any aliases or former names they may have used in the past.

Prospective teachers must fill in details of any convictions here or abroad and make a declaration to authorise the gardaí to disclose the relevant information to the Teaching Council.

It is then checked by the council staff before being sent to the CVU to check garda records. The form will then be sent back to the Teaching Council, which will decide if any of the information should preclude the applicant from having the registration necessary to work in an Irish school.