A TEAM of experts will be sent in to monitor the overhaul of a primary school which has been strongly criticised in the most damning inspection report ever issued by the Department of Education. The unprecedented move follows a litany of shocking revelations contained in an inspection report into the North Dublin Muslim School in Cabra, which is housed in the former School for the Deaf.
Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe last night said the standards of management, teaching and learning at the school were "unacceptable" and that child protection policies were "inadequate".
The findings -- the most critical of nearly 3,000 inspection reports issued by the department -- are set to cause alarm within Ireland's 32,000-strong Muslim community.
The report -- seen by the Irish Independent -- will be officially published tomorrow.
It reveals:
- Taxpayers' money given to the school in the form of grants since it opened in 2001 is unaccounted for;
- The quality of teaching of English, Irish and maths is "poor" or "very poor", with teacher morale "very poor";
- Sanitary facilities are "inadequate;
- The school is in breach of several pieces of legislation;
- The school refuses to implement the music curriculum.
Separate correspondence, also seen by the Irish Independent, reveals that the school failed to pay around €37,000 it owed to the department.
To recover some of the money, the department withheld payment of the capitation grant in June 2008 and threatened to do so again recently.
Critical
The patron of the school, Imam Yahya Al-Hussein, said the report was too critical and a bit "over the top".
He said the current board of management, appointed last November, inherited the problems and was trying to solve them. The former board chairperson Shahzad Ahmed was unavailable for comment last night.
The draft inspection report says that no financial accounts are available since the school opened and there is little physical evidence of where state grants have been spent.
The current acting principal (the fourth since it opened) has still not completed the probationary process. All the mainstream teaching staff resigned last June and the board made 12 new appointments. No member of the teaching staff had completed the probationary period at the time of the inspection on November 28 -- only four of them are fully qualified within the Irish system.
The report says that the school is unable to provide support for newly qualified teachers or those experiencing professional difficulties.
Several policies that relate to the care, welfare and protection of children have not been drawn up. The school is in breach of the Education Welfare Act (2000) and of the Rules for National Schools.
The report says there are no policies on attendance; child protection; social personal and health education and on the duties of special needs assistants.
The Relationships and Sexuality Education programme has not been implemented.
There are no plans for assessment; for English as an additional language; for visual arts, physical education; drama and music.
The North Dublin school is one of two schools catering for the Muslim community. Pupil numbers there have fallen significantly since 2006, the report says.
However, the report found inconsistencies between class roll books, the attendance book and the register of pupils.
Since 2006 almost 3,000 inspection reports have been published by the department on its website.
There are two kinds of reports: single subjects; and Whole School Evaluation (WSE) such as that prepared for the North Dublin Muslim National School.
The inspectors review the quality of school management, school planning and the quality of learning and teaching.
There have been a few very critical reports, mainly at post-primary level, but none come anywhere near this one in terms of the directness of the language and the criticism.
It represents a significant step change in the approach taken by the department whose lawyers checked and double checked the report before agreeing to its publication.
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