Teacher fired after student complains of sexual abuse

Education Minister Anne Tolley said she could not comment on the latest case but agreed any case of sexual abuse was one too many. Photo / Christine Cornege

A private school in Auckland has been rocked by allegations of a sexual nature against a teacher.

Police are investigating the complaints made by a student against the teacher, who has now been dismissed.

The school's principal said the student made the complaint late in March and the teacher was immediately dismissed after an emergency meeting of the school board.

Police were also notified and members of the child abuse team visited the school several times last month to interview students and update staff on their investigation into the allegations.

The principal said the school acted quickly to assure parents and pupils there was no further risk to students and that the appropriate authorities were dealing with the complaint.

The New Zealand Teachers Council has been informed of the school's actions and the identity of the teacher.

It has been recommended the teacher be deregistered, although the council is likely to await the outcome of the police investigation before putting the matter before its disciplinary tribunal.

The principal said the school had also kept parents informed and in return received numerous letters and emails of support for the way it handled the matter.

Detective Sergeant Dick Corbidge said no charges had yet been laid and he could not comment any further on the investigation or the nature of the allegations.

The news comes a day after the Herald revealed that five other teachers around the country had been banned from the profession this year after being found guilty of sexually abusing children.

Those cases involve charges from indecent acts through to sexual violation on a range of victims aged between 7 and 12.

The teachers, most of whom are serving time in jail for their crimes, were all deregistered by the Teachers Council following disciplinary hearings.

The number of teachers deregistered for sexual offending this year is much higher than in previous years. Normally the council rules on only one or two such cases a year.

Teachers Council director Peter Lind said any sexual complaint against a teacher was "one too many".

He said it was hard to know if the five cases this year were the start of some kind of trend but it was a significant concern that there were five.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said she could not comment on the latest case but agreed any case of sexual abuse was one too many.

"While the overwhelming majority of teachers do a fantastic job, it'svital that students are safe while at school, and that parents have peace of mind."

Mrs Tolley said the Government had introduced laws to improve student safety, such as allowing information to be matched between the Teachers Council's register of teachers and the Ministry of Education's payroll database.

That provided a more reliable and efficient method of monitoring teacher registration and tracking the employment of teachers to ensure they met current teaching and safety standards.

Labour's education spokeswoman, Sue Moroney, said it was difficult to know if the increase in teachers being caught for sexual offending was due to it happening more often or to better procedures for reporting it.

"It could be that there's better reporting and discovering of the sexual offending ... and I would hope that's what it was telling us, but from a worst case scenario it means there is a significant increase in the offending."