Scotland’s teaching watchdog has hit out at government plans to replace it with a new body that will register a wider range of education workers, saying it could cost as much as £7 million to establish and could lead to a proliferation of unqualified teachers in Scottish classrooms.

The Scottish government is proposing that the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) be replaced with an Education Workforce Council for Scotland (EWCS) which would register a wider range of education workers, from school librarians to classroom assistants.

However, the GTCS says it is “strongly opposed” to the proposal which it believes has “the potential to do irreparable harm to the status and identity of teachers” and “impact adversely on the global reputation of the Scottish education system”.

In its response to the proposal the GTCS said that the disbanding of the General Teaching Council for England six years ago had led to the definition of a “teacher” becoming blurred and a lack of public protection. If the GTCS was replaced there was a danger of the same thing happening in Scotland, said GTCS chief executive, Ken Muir.

Figures published last year showed that there had been a 62 per cent increase in the number of unqualified teachers in English schools between 2012 and 2016.

Mr Muir said: “In England we have seen the disassembling of the teaching profession. One reason the GTCS was set up in 1965 was to remove unqualified teachers from the classroom and to give the public a degree of confidence round the standard required for folk coming into the profession. It is difficult to become a teacher and it has to be because teaching itself is very difficult.

“That disassembling of teacher professionalism in England, that’s not something we would like to see happening in Scotland… If the GTCS is disbanded and is not replaced with something with similar powers we run the risk of what’s happened in England.”

Mr Muir made his comments as the body launched its official response yesterday to the Scottish government consultation on new legislation to empower schools. The consultation closed on Tuesday and has elicited responses from headteachers; education directors, and teaching unions, among others.

The GTCS stresses it supports the idea of “an enhanced GTCS” that registers a wider range of education professionals. But it says these should be education workers “directly involved in the learning and teaching process”.

The Scottish government vision is  for an EWCS that registers eduation workers, including school librarians and home-school link workers. However the GTCS rejects this idea questioning the extent to which some of the proposed groups direcly influence learning and teaching and saying such a body would cost around £7 million to establish, with registrants going from the current 74,500 to 203,750.

It makes the case instead for GTCS to begin by registering instrumental music instructors, college lecturers and early years practitioners, potentially moving on to register and regulate “other appropriate professional groups… in a phased manner”. These might include sports coaches and active school coordinators, it suggests.

Such an approach could be delivered “at a fraction of the cost” of the government proposals, it says.

In its response to the government consultation the GTCS says: “The Council of GTCS is strongly opposed to the establishment of an EWCS as set out by the Scottish Government in the Empowering Schools document. In particular, there is no evidence-based rationale for replacing GTCS, with its strong brand and highly-regarded national and international reputation, with a new body. It is our view that the proposal to establish an EWCS focuses too much on unnecessary and costly structural change... Council’s view is that the expensive set-up and recurring costs in establishing an EWCS would be much better used to support front-line services that deliver learning and teaching.”

It adds: “The Scottish Government needs to recognise and learn from the problems created in England with the Westminster Government’s decision several years ago to disband the former General Teaching Council for England (GTCE). A number of functions formerly carried out by GTCE had to be taken into government and the registration of teachers fell into abeyance. As a result of the latter, there was no public or employer access to a register, the definition of a “teacher” became blurred and there was no public protection of who was able to teach and who was barred from teaching.”

The GTCS puts the cost of establishing a new EWCS at £7 million (£6,958,000). It believes it would have to take on 27 new staff resulting in costs of around £1.3m; it puts the cost of registering and regulating the groups proposed by the government at £2.6m; and IT related costs at £3.1m.

It also says if GTCS had to exit Strathclyde Pension Scheme that would cost another £6.4 million.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Our education reforms are focussed on giving schools and headteachers more power and money to raise standards and close the attainment gap. Our reform proposals are based on international evidence of how high-performing education systems work - and will deliver extra help for teachers in the classroom, more professional development and a stronger voice for parents and pupils. 

“We welcome feedback in response to our consultation on the Education (Scotland) Bill and will consider all the responses received.”