Report Shows Increase In Inappropriate Teacher/Student Incidents

A new report has shown that inappropriate teacher/student incidents have increased, which has been cited as a consequence of online chat after school hours.

According to the NSW Ombudsman information, inappropriate behaviour includes teachers giving gifts, money and things such as booze and drugs.

The data shows that complaints of sexual misconduct have increased by 63 per cent in the last two years.

Largely, it is social media that is the conduit for the out of school contact, with 45 per cent of cases involving messaging that crossed professional boundaries.

One factor for the increase has been concluded to be the fact that young teachers aged under 33 have grown up in the digital age.