The civil liability of a teacher arises from the fact that he teaches students who are mostly children in need of constant observation, supervision, and direction. Therefore, if those students cause mischief or they experience harm caused by other students or by the teacher himself, then the teacher's responsibility for mischief will surface. For an established schoolteacher, it is essential to undertake two major responsibilities, which include both management of student learning and education as well as conducting supervision on their activities. Since teachers are actively involved with the students, the act of supervision becomes an obligation under teacher responsibilities. In this regard, the study will discuss the nature of the main obligations entrusted to a teacher besides the responsibility of the state-employed teacher and the principle of the solutions of state as the one party responsible for compensating for the resulting damages in lieu of the teacher in charge.
TopIntroduction
Knowledge is the light which illuminates the life of the individual as it is the basis for an individual's happiness and the welfare and progress of society. Knowledge has been the source of civilizations and advancement of life in all fields. Education is one of the necessities of life, as it is the cure for the disease of ignorance and illiteracy, hence the society cannot progress without knowledge. Education has a manifold impact on society in terms of raising the quality of life as well as conducing the development of talented individuals. And since education in its various basic stages is assigned to the state competent educational authorities, or, at least supervised by them, one of their primary duties is to provide the qualified staff for that educational and study process, and, under this title, the teacher takes the lead of that educational staff and bears the brunt of the continuation and success of this task, being a public employee performing his/her duties in this field (Adiyanto, 2019).
The duties of the teacher are not confined to educating students as they span the processes of monitoring, educating and guiding students, and performing his/her work may entail some errors that could result in damage done to students, upon which the issue of who is responsible for such errors and who is liable for compensating such error is raised. Causes and types of the damage suffered by students vary, as does the civil liability borne by its perpetrator. Some damages are caused by a teacher to students due to poor performance aspects; however, others may be caused by a school administration or by some members of the educational staffs, such as administrators, professionals, and assistant technicians, as well as other sources such as tampering with school objects and electrical devices, horse play, or assaulting each other (Amro, 2019).
Alongside, the teacher’s task is not limited to teaching only, but rather it includes education, guidance, and control; hence, the teachers have to be committed to manage other tasks in the school regardless of the job title. This means that the teacher's civil liability will not be limited to the failure of performing the duty of education, but also of failure to perform the duty of control, guidance, and education (Anderson et al., 2020).
And to sum up, the study will discuss in this chapter the most important obligations that the teacher must shoulder; when the teacher’s civil liability arises, and who is responsible for paying compensation to offset the damage? And what makes the teacher’s civil liability even more significant is the fact that the UAE Law has not imparted a special regulation for teachers as regards their professional and civil liabilities even though the teachers constitute a large and important sector in society. This means that the UAE Law has not distinguished them from others who are accountable to control, such as parents and craftsmen; rather it has left that to the general rules contained in the provisions of the Civil Liability (Apple & Deyling, 1995). Therefore, the study will address the provisions of the teacher's civil liability according to what is contained in the French Civil Law through analyzing the legal texts that organize the subject of this Study.