A new complaints procedure for primary schools must allow parents to access the response of a teacher to a complaint, the National Parents' Council (Primary) has said.
The group's chairwoman, Ms Fionnuala Kilfeather, said that while the new procedure was welcome, it would be "unfair" if a teacher could see a complaint from a parent but a parent was denied access to the teacher's reply.
As reported in The Irish Times yesterday, the Department of Education, teachers and the National Parents' Council have agreed on a new procedure whereby concerns by parents about the behaviour of individual teachers will have to be fully investigated by school managements.
The question of parents' access to a teacher's reply to a complaint is the remaining issue to be resolved.
Ms Kilfeather said the major advantage of the new procedure was that it included "strict timescales" in which complaints had to be addressed and an onus to give parents information at each step of the procedure.