KEY POINTS:
MP Anne Tolley, who is tipped to become the Education Minister in John Key's new Government, has slammed the Teachers Council for being grossly incompetent in granting a disgraced British teacher the licence to teach in New Zealand.
Ms Tolley said she would be wanting "quick answers on
how they could have missed out on something so obvious", and to have processes tightened, should she be named minister today.
Teacher Fiona Forster, 45, who was struck off in Britain for asking 13-year-old pupils with special needs which of them were likely to be raped, and suspended for selling cigarettes to pupils, was last year issued a provisional licence to teach here.
She has resigned from her teaching post at the Southern Cross Campus in Manukau City, and last Friday, the school with students from Year 1 to Year 13 referred a new allegation to the Teachers Council disciplinary body.
"I am concerned at how someone like that, whose record is so easily obtainable, has missed the very basic checks ... It seems to be gross incompetency," Ms Tolley said.
"The Teachers Council, on the one hand do extraordinary checks on teachers coming into the country, and I've had complaints from overseas teachers who have to wait months and months for their registration because of the numerous checks done on them, but in this case, it seems to have slipped through the net with very few checks done at all."
An internet search on the name "Fiona Forster" would have provided information on her past, including a Daily Mirror newspaper report headlined "Teacher Fiona Forster struck off for classroom rape quiz" and how in 2006 she had asked 13-year-olds at Wilmington Enterprise College: "Which one of you would be most likely to be raped?"
Forster was found guilty by England's General Teaching Council of making inappropriate sexual comments to students in February, and was banned from working as a teacher for a minimum of two years.
In November 2006, Forster had also been suspended for six months after she sold cigarettes to students during a school sports day at Meopham School in Kent.
Teachers Council head Peter Lind said the council had last Friday received the mandatory report on Forster, and the process was under way in considering if there was a need to revoke her practising certificate, due to expire in 2010.
He insisted that "every process, and every reasonable step has been taken" to check on Forster, and that the council had made checks with Britain's Department for Children, Schools and Families.
"Twelve thousand-odd overseas teachers apply to the council on a regular basis ... there was no alert at that time to this particular individual." Mr Lind said police vetting showed Forster did not have any criminal convictions and that she had also declared on her application that there were no matters that she had been disciplined about previously.
However, the Herald on Sunday reported that it appeared the council had checked with the wrong agency - and that Alan Meyrick, registrar of England's General Teaching Council, said his council had not been approached. According to British newspaper reports, Foster had written a letter to the GTC saying she has no intention of teaching in Britain again.
Mr Lind said he did not want to respond to Ms Tolley's comments, but said Forster would not have been registered if the council had known about her past.
