Teaching Council admits “we dropped the ball” over a convicted sex offender who kept teaching
The Teaching Council’s chair, Patrick Walsh, said the council “dropped the ball” after an independent review found repeated missed opportunities to act against a convicted child sex offender (1News). RNZ reported that the body allowed him to teach despite a police warning that he should not have unsupervised access to children. Both reports date from Tuesday 13 October. The headlines do not say how long he taught or which schools employed him.
The Teaching Council decides who may teach, and its role is to stop this. The admission raises the question of what changes.
If you have children at school, you can ask the school how staff are vetted and what its safety policies are.
Look for what the council commits to change and by when, not only the apology.
DailyDrop New Zealand edition No. 10 · Morning · WED., OCT. 14, 2026