Still No Sanctions For Bad Teachers

by Don Clark - 10:45 on 10 January 2009

The General Teaching Council (GTC) has admitted the system of rooting out  bad teachers is 'virtually non-existent'

Only 10 teachers have been struck off for incompetence in almost a decade despite a Government crackdown on poor practice, it emerged today.

They are being banned from the classroom at a rate of just two in 100,000 since the GTC was set up in 2001 to protect children from under-performing staff.

The watchdog recently admitted the system for passing on concerns about weak teachers was 'virtually non-existent' in many areas.

Councils are legally required to pass details of incompetent teachers to the watchdog but two thirds have not made a single referral in seven-and-a-half years.

The revelation that only 10 out of 500,000 teachers in the system have been removed from the register makes a mockery of Labour pledges to root out incompetent staff.

A controversial claim by former Ofsted chief that there were 15,000 incompetent teachers led the then Education Secretary David Blunkett to introduce a new fast-track procedure for firing bad teachers within a month.

Labour also backed legislation setting up the GTC within months of taking power in 1997.

Ten years on, Schools Secretary Ed Balls admitted the system needs tightening up and in his 10-year Children's Plan, issued in December 2007, called on the GTC to root out teachers whose 'competence falls to unacceptably low levels'.

In response, the GTC has launched an investigation to find out why so few under-performing teachers are being referred to it.

In cases where a teacher is dismissed for incompetence or resigns when dismissal is likely, their employers are supposed to inform the GTC.

Figures disclosed by the GTC show that it has received just 155 referrals from employers in the past seven-and-a-half years, which resulted in 64 competency hearings.Of these, just 10 resulted in the teacher being struck off.

A further 39 entailed disciplinary sanctions including suspension or a reprimand. In 13 cases, the GTC ruled there was no case to answer and the teacher returned to the classroom.

The GTC's investigation will conclude later this year and is expected to lead to a crackdown on employers which shun their duties.

The number of incompetence cases emerged just days after the current Ofsted chief, Christine Gilbert, warned that 'boring' lessons were contributing to deteriorating standards of classroom discipline.

Meanwhile the Policy Exchange think-tank concluded last year that it was likely teachers are being 'recycled' around the system.

The system needs to be changed because incompetent teachers are doing themselves no favours by moving schools and finding their professional lives equally difficult.

Popular Alliance Comment:

No-one ever wants to see anyone lose their job unfairly.

However teachers who are not performing need to be helped and if they cannot still perform they should be moved to a different role or dismissed.

Our childrens education is too important to allow one teacher to potentially influence up to 200 children a year in a negative way.

Why can the public sector not start to play by the same rules as the private sector.

Staffs update - Staffordshire's largest secondary school, De Ferrers in Burton onTrent has gained an "Outstanding" rating from Ofsted which is excellent news for Stretton residents. One point to ask though - as the school is termed a "Technology College" it is a little strange that only 3 of last year's A level graduates have gone on to study "technology" subjects at University.  

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