GTC wants to safeguard teacher professionalism

published:09 Jun 2010

The General Teaching Council for England’s Executive Committee met on Wednesday 9 June in emergency session to consider the implications of the Secretary of State’s proposal to seek the abolition of teaching’s independent professional body.

Members of the Committee expressed their shock at the decision and their thanks to GTC staff who are continuing to operate services to a high standard of professionalism in a period of great uncertainty. All of the GTC’s statutory duties remain in force pending the passage of legislation.

Chief among the Committee’s priorities is a determination to work in the public interest and to safeguard the standing of the teaching profession.

The Committee wishes to assert the value of the functions that Parliament has asked the GTC to discharge. It wants to engage with the Secretary of State and Department officials to understand better how these functions might be delivered, irrespective of the future of the GTC as an organisation.

Among the risks identified by the Committee are:

• a loss of confidence by parents and employers if there is no comprehensive system for the registration of teachers
• a similar loss of confidence if there is no fair, consistent and public means of regulating teacher conduct and competence
• teachers’ perceptions that their own professionalism is not valued if they do not take part in their own regulation in a similar way to doctors, nurses, teachers in other parts of the UK and teachers overseas
• difficulty in ensuring that impartial, independent evidence is offered to Government
• loss of expertise on standards of teaching
• damage to the development of shared professional knowledge which teachers can use to develop their standards of practice.

Commenting on behalf of the Executive Committee, Chair of Council Gail Mortimer said:

'As a practising teacher, I feel that my professionalism has been demeaned by this announcement. At this point, we have only very sketchy information about the policy principles that may have led the Secretary of State to make this announcement. We need to know more, because when Parliament considers the proposal in the autumn, it needs to make decisions that will strengthen standards of teaching and value the professionalism of teachers, not the reverse.'

Notes to editors
About the GTC
The General Teaching Council is the independent professional and regulatory body for teaching in England. 580,000 qualified teachers are registered with the GTC.

Its principal statutory remit is to contribute to improving standards of teaching and the quality of learning and to maintain and improve standards of conduct in the public interest. It works for children, through teachers.

Contacts
Fiona Johnson, Director of Communications
Phone: 020 7023 3943
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Fiona Armstrong, Press Officer
Phone: 020 7023 3979
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