The standard of teaching in Scotland could be diluted by controversial Brexit legislation, the country’s teaching watchdog has warned.
The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) has warned that the UK Internal Market Bill could force it to accept teachers who do not meet strict national standards.
The GTCS wants an exemption to the bill, which is designed to ensure that professional qualifications issued in one part of the UK are recognised across the whole of the UK. The GTCS fears that the bill could mandate that it registers unqualified teachers from outside Scotland, by centralising the teacher registration process at a UK level.
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GTCS chief executive Ken Muir, in comments to BBC Scotland, said: “The Bill makes it quite clear that the General Teaching Council would be expected to register and give full registration to any teacher from any of the jurisdictions in the UK.
“And if they are in the teaching profession in England, irrespective of whether they are highly qualified or unqualified, the expectation is that we would register them.”
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The UK government has insisted that the bill would not stop the GTCS setting standards and controlling who can teach in Scotland. It is understood that UK ministers are prepared to delay the changes to allow time to adapt to them, but the GTCS is insisting on a full exemption.
In its response to a consultation on the Internal Market Bill, the GTCS states that “of greatest importance to GTC Scotland...is maintaining the highest standard of teaching with Scotland’s devolved education system and to do so careful consideration and assessment of individuals’ qualifications must be carried out”.
The GTCS had an equivalent body in England until it was abolished in 2012, but now that it no longer exists the Scottish teaching council believes “a system of mutual recognition would be complex and likely unworkable for the teaching profession in the UK”.
The GTCS - which criticises the “limited information” provided - highlights one passage in the Internal Market Bill White Paper, which states that “compliance with regulation required to access a profession in one territory can be used to demonstrate compliance towards access of that profession in another territory”.
The GTCS says that it receives around 600 applications from the rest of the UK a year, but that under the Bill’s proposals “it is likely that number would increase and would, in turn, have the potential to dilute the standard and quality of teaching professionals within Scotland”.
It also underlines that its stance is not “a matter of restricting access to the teaching profession but instead preserving the devolved power to impose differing professional standards within the UK in order to preserve the standard of teaching within each nation”.
The GTCS response also states: “It is unclear from the White Paper what this system would be and whether it would simply mirror the processes already in place within the UK or whether it would create a new centralised process and, if the latter, who would be in control of such a system. Without any such clarity, GTC Scotland is assuming that this would become a centralised process and has commented on the White Paper as such.”
It adds: “The White Paper lacks sufficient clarity around those professions which should be included and those which should be exempt from mutual recognition [but] GTC Scotland strongly believes that the teaching profession should be exempt from a system of mutual recognition in the UK internal market. Education is, and has long been, a devolved function for the four UK nations and, as a result, different parts of the UK have different approaches to the employment, registration (if any) and regulation of its teachers.
“Access to the teaching profession within the UK, and within each of the four UK nations, differs greatly and each nation has long-established and well-tested standards for entry into the profession. To introduce a system of mutual recognition within the UK would undermine the devolved nature of education and would remove control from the individual nations, which GTC Scotland does not believe to be appropriate or acceptable in the context of education.”
