The Guarantees of the Rights of the Educational Participants
Based on the investigations carried out by our Office, it can be stated that in many cases the rights of the participants in education are infringed because the institutions do not observe the provisions with guarantee function that are essential prerequisites to the enforcement of the rights introduced above. We regard the requirements concerning the internal regulations of educational institutions as provisions with a guarantee function, because these regulations supplement the provisions of law concerning student status in a wide range of issues. The provisions concerning the information given to the participants in education, the Public Education Act and the procedural rules of Decree 11/1994. (VI. 8.) MKM of the Minister of Education and Culture are also of guarantee function.
Pursuant to Paragraph (1) of Article 39 of the Public Education Act, educational institutions have a professional autonomy. Concerning their organisation and operation, they are entitled to decide any issue that provisions of law do not bring to another sphere of competence. Therefore in many questions that are not settled by provisions of law, the right to settle the details belongs to the educational institution. At the same time, the creation of internal rules is also an obligation of kindergartens, schools and dormitories. The Public Education Act and the Decree 11/1994. (VI. 8.) MKM of the Minister of Education and Culture lists the issues the institution shall regulate in its pedagogical program or rules of operation and organisation, and also specifies the issues to be regulated in the rules of the house.
Regarding the fact that the rights and obligations of the participants in education arise not only from provisions of law, but also from internal rules, the above decree says that the training programme of kindergartens, the pedagogical programme of schools and dormitories, their rules of the house and their rules of operation and organisation shall be displayed in a way so that they can be freely inspected by the parents and pupils. Furthermore, the principal of kindergarten, school or dormitory or the teacher assigned by him or her shall inform the parents about the educational and pedagogical programme. Compliance with the above requirement ensures that the participants in education can get acquainted with their rights and obligations.
The right of the participants in education to information and the related obligation of the other participants to provide information are indispensable parts and fundamental conditions of co-operation. In a community with a structure as special as that of an educational institution, educational rights can be enforced only through the co-operation of the parties involved.
The right to information appears as a general principle among the rights of the individual participants in education. It is the right of the pupil to receive information about the issues concerning himself/herself and his/her studies, and to make proposals to or ask questions from the managers and teachers of the school or dormitory, the school board and the dormitory board, and to receive reply on the merits within thirty days of the request - from school board or dormitory board at the first session after expiration of the thirty days. It is the right of the parent to learn about the educational and pedagogical programmes and the rules of the house of the institution, to receive information about their content, and to receive substantial and detailed information regularly about the development, conduct and educational progress of his or her child and advice and assistance in the upbringing of the child.
We already discussed the importance of providing information about grades and the legal offences arising from the irregular and inconsistent records in the class book in the chapter about evaluation. (K-OJOG-427/2003., K-OJOG-458/2003.) In the chapter about the rights of students with special educational needs we will discuss a case when the parent was compelled to enrol his or her child in another town due to the negligence of the obligation to provide information, because neither the mayor nor the town clerk informed the parent about the schools operating in the town and the conditions to state the right to special care. (K-OJOG-359/2003.) These infringements of rights arose from the non-fulfilment of the obligation to provide general information, and the lack of co-operation.
| In the case K-OJOG-562/2003. discussed previously, the parents also complained about not receiving information in due time about the fact that their children would be taught by another teacher from the succeeding school year. Regarding this, the head of the institution stated that it is not a practice in the school to inform the parents and the pupils about the changes of subject distribution in summer.
Pursuant to Decree 11/1994. (VI. 8.) MKM of the Minister of Education and Culture, the school shall prepare a subject distribution plan in order to plan the educational work at school, determine the compulsory number of classes, the tasks and jobs included in the compulsory number of classes of teachers (working time). The subject distribution plan is approved by the principal - through requesting the opinion of educational staff. As the provisions of law do not provide for special rights to receive and obligations to provide information concerning the subject distribution plan, and the provision of information is not a condition for the validity of the decision, in our opinion the absence of preliminary information did not cause the infringement of educational rights. At the same time we called the attention of the head of institution to the fact that in order to ensure successful co-operation between the school and the parents and to achieve effective educational work, it was indispensable to provide the most important information concerning the operation of the school. In the world of mutual dependencies of the school, the provision of adequate information, based on the co-operation of the parties concerned, is indispensable for the enforcement of the especially vulnerable rights of students and parents. (K-OJOG-562/2003.) |
The provisions of law impose special obligations to provide information in several cases. In the chapter about education and training time we showed that in certain cases, the acquirement of the content of the school's local curriculum and the fulfilment of requirements was only possible through attendance of optional classes. In these cases, enrolment at the school also implies the acceptance of the participation in optional classes, provided that this was brought to the attention of the student and in the case of minor pupils, the attention of the parent, in the admission guidelines and in writing before enrolment. In this case the non-observance of the obligation to provide information resulted in an unknown and unwanted increase of the statutory extent of compulsory school attendance of pupils, and the infringement of rights could not be remedied during the school year. (KOJOG-668/2003.) From the above it can be stated that the non-observance of the obligation to provide information can lead to grave infringement of rights by itself.
Another important guarantee of the enforcement of the rights of the participants in education is compliance with the procedural regulations in the Public Education Act. Pursuant to Paragraph (2) of Article 83 of the Public Education Act, the pupil or the parent can initiate a procedure in the name of the child or pupil against the decision passed, measure taken or the failure to take action by the kindergarten, the school or the dormitory within fifteen days of the receipt, or in its absence the learning of the information. In the absence of statutory provision to the contrary, the request initiating the procedure can be made orally or in writing.
In the already mentioned K-OJOG-596/2003. case, the request of the parent was not judged in the appropriate procedural order because he or she did not submit the request initiating the procedure in writing to the principal. We informed the head of the institution about the above and initiated the lawful judgement of the request. The head of the institution accepted our initiative. (K-OJOG-596/2003.)
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