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DOCS took wrong girl from school

Posted November 27, 2008 09:05:00
Updated November 27, 2008 09:12:00

Mix-up: The Education Dept says the teacher misheard the child's name. (ABC News: file photo)

• Map: Penrith 2750

Two New South Wales Government departments have apologised to the parents of a girl who was mistakenly taken out of school by a DOCS worker.

The incident happened yesterday at Penrith South Primary School, in Sydney's west, when a DOCS worker arrived at the school to take a child to speech therapy.

After about 10 minutes, the worker discovered she had taken the wrong girl and returned her to school.

The director-general of the Education Department, Michael Coutts-Trotter, says the worker's identification was checked, but the teacher misheard the name of the child.

"Yesterday was a bad mistake, an error of judgement, but we can learn from that," he said.

The Opposition's community services spokeswoman, Katrina Hodgkinson, says it should never have been allowed to happen.

"I would suggest that the school needs to implement some pretty strict protocols," she said.

"Certainly, DOCS workers will need to also brush-up on their protocols and ensure that they are asking the questions of the child, that they've got the right paperwork, they collect the child from any institution. That must be carried out before a child is taken away from its environment."

The Department of Education and Training and the Department of Community Services will conduct a thorough investigation into the mix-up.

Tags: education, schools, primary-schools, government-and-politics, public-sector, states-and-territories, australia, nsw, penrith-2750, sydney-2000