More qualified staff wanted

18th September 1998, 1:00am

Share

More qualified staff wanted

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/more-qualified-staff-wanted
Your editorial last week “Wrong reaction from the GTC” (TESS, September 11) completely misses the point. Not only that but it does so in a dangerously misleading way.

The General Teaching Council welcomes the injection of additional resources and the extra help in primary classrooms which that will mean. It insists, however, that classroom assistants should have no involvement in teaching duties. There is nothing narrow-minded, exclusive or curmudgeonly about that view. It is one which every teacher in Scotland would share.

As you say in your editorial, the General Teaching Council for Scotland was “created in an era of unqualified staff” and now has a reputation for ensuring that all entrants to the profession are suitably qualified. That may, in your own words, be a “purist approach” but the profession would quite rightly expect no less. Why should such an attitude to entry qualifications be regarded as “outdated”? The teaching profession has a right to question the idea that anyone can walk into a classroom and be involved, for instance, in the teaching of reading and mathematics.

What the council would really like to see is more qualified teachers and smaller classes. Is that also “knee-jerk defensiveness”?

Ivor Sutherland. Registrar. General Teaching Council for Scotland. Edinburgh.

Want to keep reading for free?

Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.

Keep reading for just £1 per month

You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:

  • Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
  • Exclusive subscriber-only stories
  • Award-winning email newsletters
Recent
Most read
Most shared