Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/541394
4 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 15 JULY 2015 News MUT blames lax supervision on lack of staff CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 Look- ing for an entrance, the woman found her daughter wandering around in a school foyer, and as she was about to take her daugh- ter home, realised that she could have been anyone. "There was nobody there to check my identification, and there were a number of other par- ents who were doing exactly the same thing, but I was concerned about the security issue, and an- gered as I had been led to believe there would be appropriate safety measures in place," she said. After contacting a young helper, who had her hands full and wasn't in charge of the logistics, she was told that the co-ordinator would be in charge of such matters but that he had left due to personal issues. She was then directed to a men- tor who was checking off parents' identification, only to be told that she shouldn't have been allowed onto the school premises in the first place, but that he could only do so much since he was man- ning one entrance. The parent has since been con- tacted by management of the school who admitted that such a situation was "unacceptable," and that they were "looking into" the situation. The CEO of the foundation for educational services (FES), Eliza- beth Pisani also told this paper that she has since then spoken to the parent in person. "I went to the school myself, and we ensured that there were people situated at all three exits of the school to check identifi- cation," Pisani said, adding that for some reason the system had failed on Monday. "The staff numbers were exactly the same as yesterday," she said, remarking that today's dismissal had gone very smoothly. Contacted by this newspaper, the ministry of education and its FES, said that the complaint had been noted and that immediate steps to rectify the situation have been taken. "The foundation has already spoken with this individual and she has received our assurances that this shortcoming will be addressed at once," the ministry said in its statement. It added that overall, "despite this unfortunate exception," the initial feedback of the first day of Skolasajf was positive. "As usual, the public is encour- aged to send in their feedback on our 'Edukazzjoni' Facebook page and on edu.gov.mt/feedback," they said. "They assured me that they held children's welfare at heart, which is reassuring in a way, but I sincerely hope that the logisti- cal management will improve greatly," she said, adding that given the public outcry on social media, she expected the situa- tion to improve greatly in the future. "I was particularly angry be- cause we had been told there would be a particularly rigorous system in place, but there wasn't. I'd rather be warned that there is no system present," she insisted. In its comments on Monday's incident, the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) pointed out that the lack of staff had caused various problems in state schools over the years. The MUT explained that the incident in question was not iso- lated and that such issues also hindered schools outside the summer months. "In some schools there is open access for all and they can do very little about it due to the logistics of the school building. The solu- tion is to make a risk assessment of all state schools, take action on each building where there are security f laws and introduce personnel trained in security." The MUT said it has been de- manding a redress of the situ- ation for years but while some measures in some particular schools were introduced, "there is still a very long way to go," a union spokesperson told Malta Today. Last year, the MUT had even called for staff members not to report for work due to staff short- ages, which had subsequently led to a delay of the opening of sum- mer schools. Concerns on the lack of secu- rity were compounded when a three-year-old boy was found roaming the busy streets of Fgura, after having slipped out of a government-run summer school unnoticed. The boy, who was meant to be at Skola Sajf les- sons, had triggered a national outrage on the security issues which evidently plagued the sys- tem. Investigations concluded that doors to the school were left open for three main reasons: a broken bell; no letter box for the postman to deliver the letters; no personnel or caretakers available to stand by the door to monitor who's going in and out.