Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee in connection with the proposed introduction of the requirement that all teachers in independent schools must be registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
Members will be aware that it is our intention, as the convener said, to introduce legislation requiring that all teachers in grant-aided school are GTCS registered, which is why we have an amendment to the Requirements for Teachers (Scotland) Regulations 2005, which you will consider as a negative Scottish statutory instrument under item 4.
A priority for the Scottish Government is to improve the life chances and education of all children in Scotland. High-quality teaching and strong leadership are key features of a successful education system. By introducing a requirement for all teachers working in independent and grant-aided schools to be GTCS registered, they will be brought into line with local authority schools as a means to improve the standard of teaching across the whole of the education sector. That will offer assurance to parents that, irrespective of where their children are educated, the standards and quality of teaching staff are regulated by the GTCS. The requirement will provide schools with assurances of the standard and quality of the teachers whom they employ. It will benefit teachers through professional update, the aim of which is to support, maintain and enhance continued professionalism through professional learning.
Section 98A(5) of part 5 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 sets out the circumstances in which
“Scottish Ministers shall not be satisfied”
in their consideration of an application to register an independent school. That includes that any teacher or proposed teacher is not “a proper person” if they are, by virtue of part 5, disqualified from being a teacher, disqualified from working with children or a prescribed person.
Section 98A(6) of the 1980 act provides for the Scottish ministers to make regulations prescribing what “a proper person” should be. There is currently no requirement for teachers in independent schools to be GTCS registered, although that has been encouraged by both the GTCS and the Scottish Council of Independent Schools as an alternative to introducing regulations under section 98A(6) of the 1980 act. That section was inserted into the 1980 act by the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Act 2004, with the policy intention of introducing compulsory GTCS registration for all teachers in independent schools; that provision was commenced on 31 December 2005. The provision in the 1980 act did not include a power to allow transitional arrangements when making regulations under section 98A(6), so an amendment was brought forward through section 26 of the Education (Scotland) Act 2016. That provision was commenced on 1 January 2017 and, in essence, provided the mechanism by which we could ensure that existing non-GTCS-registered teachers working in independent schools would remain in post.
It was clear from early discussions with stakeholders that there were concerns about how the proposals would affect non-registered teachers working in independent schools. We have listened to those views and extended the proposed transition period in the regulations from our initial two-year period to three years. We believe that that is sufficient, given the progress that has been made by the GTCS in identifying alternative routes to registration, including the introduction of provisional and conditional registration.
Individuals who achieve provisional or conditional registration would meet the proposed criteria in the draft regulations to be registered. I am aware that there are some reservations about some existing teachers achieving registration; we will continue to support the sector and the GTCS in moving forward on that.
The committee will wish to note that transitional arrangements are not required for existing teachers in grant-aided schools, as the normal practice for those schools has been to employ only GTCS-registered teachers.
The draft regulations that are in front of the committee have therefore been drafted to define a prescribed person as
“any person who is not a registered teacher”.
A registered teacher is
“a teacher whose particulars are recorded in the register maintained by the General Teaching Council for Scotland”.
The regulations have also been drafted to indicate that, from 1 October 2017, any teacher who is employed by an independent school must not be a prescribed person; to provide a transitional period of three years until 1 October 2020 for registration to be achieved by current teachers working in schools at the point that the regulations come into force; and to set out arrangements for
“consideration of an application to register an independent school”
that has been submitted to the Scottish ministers before 1 October 2017 but where the decision has not been determined.
A period of six months until 1 April 2018 has been provided for an application to be considered and, if the registration is granted, any teacher or proposed teacher on the application form who is not GTCS registered will be given three years from the date of registration of the school to meet the GTCS standards.
I move the motion—