Support for naming of errant teachers

A teacher found guilty of serious misconduct but allowed back in the classroom could soon face the possibility of being identified.

Support is growing for the Teachers Council - which keeps secret the names of teachers found guilty of serious misconduct but allowed back into the system - to be more transparent.

Last year the council's disciplinary tribunal dealt with 18 serious complaints. Most of the teachers received the most serious penalty - deregistration, preventing them from teaching - but five did not:

- Two teachers who had inappropriate relationships with students were suspended.

- A principal who viewed pornography at work and was ordered to abide by conditions, including seeing a psychologist.

- A teacher who hit a student eight times.

- An early childhood teacher who stole $7000.

Parents were not told of the teachers' identities. Education Minister Anne Tolley said she could consider more transparency.

Teachers Council director Dr Peter Lind said more openness in the procedure could be looked at if "there was a request to review".

The director of the National Centre for Health Law and Ethics at AUT University, associate professor Kate Diesfeld, called for a debate on public tribunal hearings at an education conference in Auckland this month.

Education lawyer Patrick Walsh called for more openness at a New Zealand Law Society seminar last year.

The chairman of the Teachers Council's disciplinary tribunal, Wellington barrister Kenneth Johnston, is also understood to want a debate.

Those feelings were thought to have been indicated in a 2008 judgment in which a father called for more transparency after his son was assaulted eight times by a teacher.