The Teacher’s Council

There is a perception that the teaching profession is not as vigilant about protecting children as it could be, with a number of dubious decisions from the Teacher’s Council which even the Minister resiles from.

The Herald this morning reports a truly awful outcome.  A teacher, Derek James McCarthy, was found with child porn on a school computer in 1999.  The then Teachers Registration Board decided not to strike him off the roll of registered teachers.

This week he was convicted of molesting a nine year old boy in 2005.

I would have though possessing child porn would be a no brainer for striking someone off as a teacher.

The fact that the teacher went on to employ such methods such as “touch the boy’s penis if he did not answer multiplication questions (such as 6 x 12) correctly” is a tragedy for the boy involved.  The parents will rightfully be very angry at the system which allowed this teacher to carry on.

Incidentally at school I was very good at my times table and could do up to 25 x 25.  If I had a teacher such as  Derek McCarthy I suspect I would have been spending five hours a night on homework until I could could do every combination up to 100 x 100!!!