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Will the new broom equal a clean sweep?
By Neil Munro, Managing Editor, TESS
Apart from pupils and their parents, it is other teachers who are the most adversely affected by incompetence among their colleagues. They are the ones who have to pick up the pieces of the later consequences for pupils' learning. So the main beneficiary of ensuring that all teachers are fit to teach is the profession itself.
Moves in that direction should not, therefore, be dismissed as merely a knee-jerk reaction to satiate public demand or the demands of some newspapers - perchance the two are related?
As has been demonstrated by some of the reaction to the current plans by GTCS to streamline its overall disciplinary processes, however, this is the elephant in the room. The Council is taking a notably tougher approach - including temporary suspension from the register in some cases, pending fuller investigation. But it has some distance to go, compared to the way the medical or dental councils deal with their errant members.
It is regularly affirmed that the number of incompetent teachers in Scotland is insignificant - so what's the problem? If it is insignificant, teaching must be the only profession where that is so. Of course, as former GTCS disciplinary sub-committee convener Carole Ford has pointed out, the formal statistics on people sacked or struck from the register for incompetence do not tell the whole story. Some teachers may leave voluntarily when they discover they cannot hack it.
While the 'insignificance' of teacher incompetence is not something that may be acknowledged publicly, the reality begs to differ. Until recently, the GTCS did not talk to the education authority employers about it - since there was no obligation to do so. For many headteachers, 'please take ' took on a different meaning as failing teachers were passed from one school to another, helped on their way by glowing references; and union negotiators were often faced with striking deals to ease problem teachers out of the classroom. 'Swept', 'under' and 'carpet' spring to mind.
The difficulty in pinning down incompetence in teaching is that it is not easily defined or always immediately obvious, making the dispensation of justice more complex. A surgeon who botches it on the operating table has fewer places to hide.
However, any system set up to deal with this issue must meet four tests: it has to be fair, transparent, thorough and objective. Teachers can be falsely accused. And teaching is a collegiate profession where one individual's effectiveness can be hampered by the failures of others. Such weaknesses can include those of management, so incompetence is not a crowded street populated only by the infantry. There is therefore really a fifth test - consistency.
The ultimate protection for pupils, parents and other teachers must surely be a rigorous screening at the point of entry - during teacher training and probation. That process should spot the weak, the disorganised, the undisciplined, the unempathetic, the unprofessional.
Sadly, what it probably will not prevent slipping through the net are the devious, the inappropriate, the ill-intentioned. Like the poor, perhaps, bad apples will always be with us - but that is no reason to keep on digesting them.