THE fate of the first teacher to face being struck off under new rules to weed out incompetent staff from Scotland's schools will be known next month.
New powers allow the profession's regulator, Scotland's General Teaching Council (GTC), to hold disciplinary hearings on incompetence and strike bad teachers off the register.
The Scotsman can reveal the first hearing is expected to take place
next month and another teacher faces a disciplinary hearing by the end of the year.
Unions welcomed the move as a visible sign that education standards are being maintained, and parents said the move was long overdue.
Ronnie Smith, the general-secretary of Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, said: "The powers still rest in the hands of local authorities to get rid of teachers they judge not good enough to work for them.
"What has changed is authorities now must tell the GTC they have done so and the GTC must then debate whether that person is not competent to teach."
The move means teachers sacked for incompetence can no longer simply move to another local authority to work.
Those accused of incompetence are judged against the standard for full registration – a minimum standard to practise.
Mr Smith added: "Our understanding is that the majority of people on the disciplinary panel will be teachers. For us, that self-regulation is the crucial point and we are content for teachers to be judged by their peers."
Previously, only training teachers could be denied a place on the register if they were deemed not good enough.
Teachers already on the register could only be struck off (in effect a ban from teaching) for misconduct, not for simply being bad at the job.
The new powers are a result of the McCrone deal for teachers, which increased salaries and improved working conditions in return for improved standards.
Mr Smith was adamant such hearings would be rare.
He said: "I don't think we are going to see hundreds of people coming through the system because I don't believe there are hundreds of bad teachers."
Although the GTC has had the power since 2006, it has taken until now for the first cases to come to a hearing.
After the GTC is informed of a dismissal it must investigate whether a disciplinary hearing is necessary. It then takes several months to build a case, arrange witnesses and identify a date.
Teachers cannot resign from the register, so the process cannot be speeded up by the accused admitting incompetence. Examples of incompetence could include a secondary teacher having too little knowledge of their subject or a primary teacher failing to teach children maths.
Eleanor Coner, an information officer at the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said: "It is about time there were procedures to do this. Everybody knows of a bad teacher they had or someone in the family had."
Mark Paxton, a GTC investigating officer, said: "It does in some way alleviate parents' fears that teachers simply qualify and have a job for life. There is a minimum standard teachers must maintain throughout their career."
How other professions deal with failing staffDOCTORS in the UK must register with the General Medical Council (GMC) to show they have appropriate medical training and are fit to practise.
Those registered can be summoned to appear before a GMC panel and struck off if convicted of criminal offences or for malpractice.
Dentists similarly must register with the British Dental Association and can also be struck off from the profession.
Similarly the Nursing and Midwifery Council rules all nurses must protect and support the health of the community, act in a way that justifies the trust and confidence of the public, and uphold the reputation of the profession or face a ban from nursing.
The Law Society of Scotland can bring complaints against solicitors to the independent Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal, which can strike individuals off the Roll of Solicitors, meaning they would no longer be able to practise in Scotland.
The full article contains 676 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
