False Allegations Against Staff

I just saw an atricle on the BBC News pages about false allegations against staff in schools. The report states that around half of all accusations or allegations are "unsubstantialed, malicious or unfounded". Is this really any surprise I ask myself?

Having been the victim of such and incident I feel quite strongly about this. And, to be honest, even if I hadn't been the victim of this, I'd still feel quite strongly. The problem stems from various governments awarding both parents and pupils too much power, and society being fed a diet of paranoia by the press. Teachers, upon accustion, are almost automatically presumed guilty - none of this "innocent until proven guilty" stuff for us. I was fortunate that my headteacher believed that the accusation against me was of the malicious type. In short, one of my pupils set up a social networking account in my name and was posting some inappropriate commets on it.

The government has said that it is to give teachers accused of anything anonymity until the allegations are proven - which is around 5% of the time according to the article. At the moment staff in around 20% of cases are suspended, of which around a fifth are found guilty. The trouble is that investigations take time and by the time the allegation is found to have been malicious the damage is already done and the teacher can't resume their post easily, if at all. And in most cases nothing happens to the child who made the false accusation.

I have seen one episode of "Educating Essex" on Channel 4 and in the programme a child made a false allegation against the deputy head. Due to the programme being filmed there was total coverage by CCTV around the school meaning that it was very easy for the school to show that the child was lying. Most schools don't have access to that technology though, and had the accusation been made elsewhere the deputy head would almost certainly have been suspended on the same day.

This is once again a typical example of our modern society where children are protected from any consequences that they should be subject to, meaning that they will never learn from their mistakes. It is also an example of schools being unable to prepare their students for the workplace. If someone made a false allegations there not only would there be legal consequences, but employees tend to reap what they sow (I'll leave the retribution tactics to your imaginations) rather than essentially get away with an apparently throw-away comment.

As the unions have all said, offering anonymity to teachers facing an allegation is a step in the right direction, but if they return to work they will more than likely still be teaching that lying child because little or nothing will have happened to them - "because they didn't understand what they were doing".

They will soon understand if they have to find themselves in a new school as a result of being excluded, forced to make new friends and a slur on their permanent record.

Link to the BBC article: HERE