Parents denied representation in meeting with head of Education Ministry’s department

Education Commissioner Vincent De Gaetano has upheld a complaint by the parents of six children attending a specialist resource centre, ruling that the Education Ministry acted improperly in denying them the right to be accompanied by a representative at a scheduled meeting with the director general of educational services.

The parents who filed a complaint with the Education Commissioner requested a meeting with the Ministry’s Director General, Ritienne Borg Saliba, to discuss issues related to their children’s education at the San Miguel Resource Centre within St Clare College.

Besides requesting the meeting, the parents also notified the director general that they wished to be represented by “a husband and wife couple who had represented them on other issues with the Education Division”, according to the Commissioner’s report.

“Although the representatives do not have any children at the resource centre in question, they have extensive knowledge of the special needs of children attending resource centres like San Miguel, their son having previously attended another such centre. The Director General refused permission for the parents’ representatives to attend. When the parents insisted, the meeting was cancelled,” the Commissioner added.

The Education Commissioner reports to the Ombudsman’s Office, which is responsible for investigating allegations of public maladministration.

The Permanent Secretary of the Education Ministry, Matthew Vella, did not respond to the Ombudsman’s requests for a formal response from the Ministry.

In his Final Opinion on the complaint, published earlier on Thursday, the Education Commissioner based his decision on the extensive legal protections for parents’ right to be directly involved in decisions concerning the education of a minor.

“It is unreasonable, verging on the administratively oppressive, to restrict the parents’ rights to be represented, at meetings with the education authorities, by persons of their choice,” the Commissioner states.

De Gaetano upheld another complaint by the same parents against San Miguel Resource Centre, whose Head claimed to have been unable to provide copies of their children’s timetable due to unspecified “administrative problems.”

The Commissioner recommended that the parents be allowed to bring their chosen representatives to the meeting and that the school immediately provide copies of the requested timetables.

Over the past couple of months, the Ombudsman’s Office has published multiple reports critical of the Education Ministry’s operations.

Education Minister Clifton Grima has come under fire for failing to address what was described as “a massive shortage” of Learning Support Educators (LSEs), with the Education Commissioner being forced to pass on his recommendations directly to Parliament after Grima refused to engage.

In October, the Ombudsman’s Office also chided the ministry for failing to reappoint an appeals board responsible for assessing the validity of academic qualifications, leading to a backlog of pending cases in which academics hoping to get validation for their certificates were left hanging for months.