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?
