Staff from England treated as ‘second-class citizens’

Watchdog denies discrimination as EU rules ‘benefit teachers from other countries’
9th June 2017, 12:00am
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Staff from England treated as ‘second-class citizens’

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/staff-england-treated-second-class-citizens

Scotland’s teaching watchdog has been accused of “shameful” discrimination against teachers from England for treating them “as second-class citizens compared with EU teachers”.

The comments were made by St Columba’s School - a mixed independent day school in Kilmacolm, Inverclyde - in its response to a Scottish government consultation on the new regulations for registering independent school teachers with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS).

The school’s response said: “Teachers from England who have qualified teacher status should be offered full registration. They are treated as second-class citizens compared with teachers from countries where teacher training is of a poor standard and who are automatically given registration due to EU law.”

The GTCS has strongly denied the claims. John Edward, director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, said England is not classed as an EU state, so cannot benefit from EU rules on mutual recognition of qualifications. England also lacks its own teaching council that the GTCS can link with, he added. As a result, each case had to be considered on its merits, which took time.

Mr Edward said: “The GTCS is not discriminating but I’m sure there are teachers who have felt like that. If you’ve got people who are teaching at some of the top schools in the world struggling to get registered to come north, there must be a glitch in the system.”

England was the biggest market for teachers outside of Scotland for Scottish independent schools, Mr Edward added.

Scottish boarding schools often recruited staff from England, he said, and teachers from England plugged gaps in subjects like economics and classics, which teachers in Scotland were no longer trained to deliver.

The vast majority of private school teachers - 3,270 - are already registered with the GTCS. But estimates say around 700 are not registered and around 240 do not hold the necessary qualifications. In March, the government published draft registration guidance stating that, from 1 October, any new teacher employed by a private school must be registered with the GTCS.

Teachers currently working in the sector will have until October 2020 to register.

The consultation on the draft regulation closed at the beginning of last month and received 13 responses. The majority agreed that the transitional arrangements were “reasonable and fair”, said the consultation analysis. There would, therefore, be no changes to the draft regulations setting out the timescales, it concluded.

A GTCS spokeswoman said it was unacceptable to suggest it discriminated in any way against teachers, wherever they came from. She added that all teachers had to meet the GTCS standards for registration and it was “disingenuous to suggest that teachers from the European Union are less qualified”.

She continued: “A degree-level qualification in a relevant subject and an appropriate teaching qualification must be a pre-requisite of full registration with GTCS. This reassures the public, children and other teachers that standards are being upheld across Scottish schools.

“We register nearly 500 teachers from England annually.”


@Emma_Seith

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