ALL primary schools are to be required to teach a self- protection programme that helps pupils recognise and avoid abusive situations.Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has indicated he will make the Stay Safe programme – already taught in up to 85% of the country’s 3,300 primary schools – made mandatory as part of revised child protection guidelines for schools.
Stay Safe is used as part of the social, personal and health education (SPHE) curriculum. It teaches children to recognise an unsafe situation and tell an adult about it, how to respond to unwanted touching and to be aware it is all right to say ‘no’ if asked to do something wrong or dangerous.
The most recent survey of primary schools in 2006 revealed that up to 700 schools may not have been teaching the programme, although staff at around 200 of these schools had received training on teaching Stay Safe by mid-2007.
Mr O’Keeffe’s predecessor Mary Hanafin had indicated she might make it mandatory to be taught by all schools and the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Programme for Government in 2007 included a commitment that this would be done.
As part of a review of the Department of Health and Children’s Children First protection and welfare guidelines, the Department of Education has begun consultations with school managers, teacher unions and parent representatives on potential changes to school guidelines.
These are also being reviewed by a group of education partners and Department of Education officials, according to Mr O’Keeffe’s spokesperson.
"Ensuring that the Stay Safe programme is implemented in all schools as part of a comprehensive set of practices, procedures and guidelines to ensure child safety is important. It is the minister’s intention to have it included as a mandatory requirement for all schools in any revision to the current arrangements that emerges from the working party," he said.
The Department of Education was responding to a statement from Fine Gael education spokesperson Brian Hayes, who said schools should not be allowed to bow out of the vital programme.
Mr Hayes criticised the absence of updated information since 2006 on the number of schools teaching Stay Safe, saying that schools play an enormous role in child protection and must be supported in that.
"If the Murphy and Ryan reports have taught us anything, it is that we should not drag our heels on the issue of child protection," Mr Hayes said.
Mr O’Keeffe’s spokesperson said primary schools have been asked whether they are using the Stay Safe programme in a wider survey sent out last June, to which almost 700 schools have yet to respond.
In the wake of the Ryan Report into the abuse of children in residential institutions last summer, the Irish Primary Principals Network repeated its call for mandatory reporting of suspected abuse and said the majority of such concerns raised by schools with the HSE were not being followed up.
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