The government has been told to revive the idea of “chartered teachers” - five years after the original chartered teacher programme was scrapped.

A wide-ranging parliamentary report on teacher workforce planning has proposed the move as a response to concerns that people are put off entering the profession - or staying in it - because of poor pay and career prospects.

The move has been welcomed by the EIS teaching union, although the report also carried reminders that the previous scheme, which was abolished in 2012, failed amid criticism that it did not have the intended impact on learning and teaching.

Teacher Workforce Planning for Scotland’s Schools, by the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee, states: “There is a need for a means to provide financial reward, recognition and increased status to experienced and valued teachers who wish to remain in the classroom.

“The committee recommends that the introduction of something akin to the chartered teacher scheme is considered to ensure classroom teachers feel valued and have increased motivation to keep teaching.”

The committee, which canvassed the views of hundreds of teachers, was surprised by how many praised the chartered teacher scheme, which sought to boost the pay of those who chose to stay in the classroom but committed to extra study and improving their skills.

This groundswell of support led to the view that “the introduction of some means of financially rewarding experienced teachers in the classroom could improve retention”. The original scheme’s abolition had “removed the ability of schools to give financial rewards to, and therefore increase the chances of retaining, staff who are valued classroom teachers of considerable experience”.

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: “It is ironic that the report advocates the introduction of ‘something akin to the chartered teacher scheme’, when it was the Scottish government that closed that highly-regarded and world-leading scheme.”

Learning from past mistakes

The report notes, however, that School Leaders Scotland general secretary Jim Thewliss told the committee that the chartered teacher scheme “fell by the wayside because it did not fulfil the function that it was intended to fulfil in the first place, which was to recognise, reward and promote the use of good practice in the school”.

The top of the chartered teacher pay scale is £43,845 - chartered teachers could retain higher salaries after the end of the scheme - compared with £35,763 at the top of the main-grade teacher scale. Mr Thewliss said the scheme “became an exercise that teachers went through to get themselves more pay”.

Teacher recruitment has become a longrunning problem in Scotland. It was reported recently that there were nearly 700 unfilled posts at the start of the school year, across primary and secondary schools.

June’s long-awaited education governance review called for Singapore-style career progression - where there are various career paths for teachers and more steps along the way than in Scotland - while the possibility of fast-track teacher-training programme Teach First arriving north of the border has stoked up much controversy.

Mr Flanagan welcomed the new report’s support for better salaries and career pathways, but warned that recommendations about lowering “overly restrictive” entry standards to teaching and allowing greater “flexibility” in recruiting from outside Scotland were “worrying” and “do not sit well with the need to maintain high standards”.

The report (see bit.ly/TeacherWorkforce) also called for:

• more coordinated workforce planning;

• financial incentives for hard-to-fill posts;

• a review of entry requirements to initial teacher education;

• more consistency in students’ courses across the country;

• Education Scotland and Scottish Qualifications Authority staff to shadow teachers so that they better understand the pressures on the profession.

Education Secretary John Swinney said that he would “study carefully” the report’s recommendations, and welcomed its “endorsement of the action this government is already taking to make a career in teaching more attractive and create innovative routes into the profession”.

He said that government investment had “directly resulted in 253 more teachers last year” and that he recently announced the expansion of its teacher-recruitment campaign after the first phase “led to thousands more undergraduate students considering teaching as a career at some point in the future”.