Teacher Liability
Everyone is related to a child. Some may be very young and some old enough to go to school. Although proximity of the school to the home is most often the reason for choosing a school for a child, there are various other reasons used like the family ancestors’ preference over a particular school, or because of the school’s good academic record. There are also quite a few parents who select a school based on its focus on the spiritual aspect, and those that prefer schools that are open to broken-home families.
And then we have those parents who decide based on how a particular teacher behaves with children. When asked why this is important, they say that a teacher who is attentive to the needs of a child will more effectively substitute the mom or the dad while the child is in school, and this will help avoid any mishaps that the child may encounter while in school. When asked if they believe the teachers are
responsible and even liable for whatever happens to the child, they usually say that the teachers should be held liable. They feel it is but fair and just for a teacher and even for the owner of the school, especially nursery schools, to be held responsible for their child.
Principles behind Teacher Liability
According to Tolentino “a teacher must not only be charged with teaching but also vigilance over their students or pupils”. Without the parents to look after their children when in school, it is the teacher who takes over in the supervision. It is thus fitting that the basis of a teacher’s liability is the principle of “in loco parentis”, which, according to Black’s Dictionary, means “in the place of a parent”,“exists when a person undertakes care and control of another in absence of such supervision by natural parents and in absence of formal legal approval, and is temporary in character and is not to be likened to an adoption which is permanent”.
Schools exercise their educational functional principally through their administrators and teachers, while parents exercise their parental authority by sending their children to school to comply with their duty to educate them according to their means, as provided in Article 220 of the Family Code, and Article 72 of the Child and Youth Welfare Code, as amended. Consequently, when parents send their minor child to school, they must necessarily pass on or share their parental authority, their custody over the child, and the responsibility to educate their child properly with the school, its administrators and teachers temporarily, as the latter shall assume such during all the time the child is under their supervision and instruction. This, in essence, is the principle of substituted parental authority.
In private schools mostly the teachers do their best to maintain the good conduct of the pupils,and when the teacher failed to uphold the proper classroom management, it is always the teacher who suffers the consequence, but when the student misbehave and the teacher has done the obligation to guide the pupils towards a good attitude and the pupil complaint to their parents about the attitudes of the teacher concern, again it is the teacher who suffer the consequence.
If the students or pupils has a right, the teachers also has right, to do their obligation within the boundary of the law and not within the pleasure of the parents.
Guiding the pupils towards a better attitude is not a crime nor a violation of any law.
