Inquiries may see educators lose right to teach

Powers for misbehaving and bad teachers to face inquiries and possibly lose the right to teach come into effect from today — 15 years after the relevant law first passed.

By commencing the fitness-to-teach provisions of law governing the Teaching Council, Education Minister Richard Bruton gives it authority to investigate complaints and conduct inquiries against any of the 93,000 people on its register.

Like its counterparts in the Medical Council, it can hold these inquiries in public, and it will have powers to issue sanctions that include the removal of a teacher from its register. This would remove a person’s ability to teach in State-funded primary or second-level schools, and a teacher could also be suspended for up to two years as a result of a fitness-to-teach inquiry.