The Andalucía minister for education, Francisco Álvarez de la Chica, has stated that his department is to ask the senior prosecutor in Andalucía to investigate possible cases of fraud in obtaining places for children at schools. He has insisted that any instances should be treated as criminal instead as administrative offences as at present.Speaking at a press conference Álvarez de la Chica explained that at the meeting with the chief prosecutor Jesús García Cañderón they had spoken about this and the ministry of education did not discount the possibility of following this course of action.
The minister stated that there were official reports that pointed to the possible falsification of documents by families who wanted to secure a place at a specific school or college for their children.
The situation at present is that the falsification of public documents to obtain an illegitimate advantage over other families in the process of seeking school places for their children is deemed to be an administrative offence. However the minister argues there should be greater consequences and hence it could be made a criminal matter.
The reason for this strong action said the minister was to make examples of those who tried to cheat the system. He stressed that it was important that the process of registering children for school was “one hundred per cent” clean.
Fair enough but readers in Britain will know that the situation there has already moved on. Now we have councils using covert surveillance and even evoking laws that were meant to combat terrorism to track down and prosecute parents who cheat the system.
School discipline for parents is the order of the day – but should they be legally caned or made to stand in the administrative corner?
4 comments:
Obviously the reason anyone would try to cheat the system is because there are more applicants than places available at their preferred school.Every parent wants the best possible education for their child -it is the key to their future.Instead of criminalising parents the government should focus on creating more classroom spaces and eliminate the cheating by results rather than the threat of a criminal conviction.
What a topsy turvy world where parents who go to extremes to get the best for their children are treated as terrorists, and those carers/guardians/educators who abuse children without parents are protected in many cases by the same authorities who wish to criminalise overzealous parents.
Cutting costs and saving expenses on the worlds future is part and parcel of juggling finances by todays politicians as opposed to making the best available for our children at any costs. Therefore we will always suffer a lack of educational facilities until radical measures are taken.
Having been a custodian of the law,a carer,guardian, educator, and a parent I have never advocated cheating in any way at all. This sounds that I am squeeky clean and which I am the first to admit that I am not.
I could have envoked the law per say and taken the zero tollerance policy to its extreme, but we all have been gifted with an ounce of common sense that allows us to make an assesment of the situation and not jump to the wrong conclusions about anyone nor to treat everone in the same manner.
As the parent of a recalcitrant teenager who flatly, vehemently and occasionally violently refuses to go to school, I admit to having my hands tied.
If I drag him to school by the ears, I'm likely to be arrested on the spot, yet the authorities are on to my case for not making him go, ad threaten to fine me heavily (luckily you can't get blood out of a stone and prison might make a nice rest).
Under the circumstances, I can understand anyone falsifying documents to get their child into the 'right' school. The one my son shouldbe attending is definitely the wrong one: no help from them despite my pleadings for over 18 months, when they finally consented to have an 'intervention team' (one psychologist, one 'educator' and one social worker)work on 'the case' - not my son, 'a case'.
Now the 'intervention team' admits to not knowing what to do about 'the case' and throw their hands into the air.
So do I.
(By the way, I don't like the squiggly letters I'm supposed to copy to get this through to you, Sancho. They read 'paeds'!)
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