On the day of the national teachers’ strike, the leading thinktank Policy Exchange has released figures which show that pupils are not being protected from incompetent teachers {figures broken down by local authority below}. Employers (in most cases the local education authority but sometimes the school itself) are legally obliged to refer to the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) teachers who have been dismissed on grounds of incompetence. They are also supposed to refer cases in which a teacher left a school voluntarily but would have been dismissed if they had not. The GTCE then has the power, if they decide further action should be taken, to: issue a reprimand to the teacher; attach conditions to a teacher’s registration (e.g. further training) or remove a teacher from the register either temporarily or permanently.
Yet since the GTCE took responsibility for regulating the teaching profession in June 2001, almost two-thirds (97 of 150) of Local Education Authorities in England have not referred a single case to the GTCE on grounds of incompetence. A further 27 have referred just one case. Essex and Nottinghamshire are the only authorities to refer more than ten. Other employers of teachers (primarily Foundation and Voluntary Aided schools) have referred just 9 cases in a little under seven years.
The total number of incompetence referrals for the 80 months to 31st January 2008 is just 135, or an average of 20 per year. From the 135 referrals, 60 incompetence hearings have taken place to date, with 46 resulting in a conviction and disciplinary order. Of these, just 8 teachers were barred from the profession and 10 suspended from the register.
Author of the report and Head of Policy Exchange’s Education Unit, Sam Freedman said: “No-one believes there have been just 46 incompetent teachers operating since 2001. There are many more but they often resign when threatened with a capability review.
“A number of poorly performing schools have lost 30%-40% of staff soon after the arrival of a new headteacher. The GTCE are hardly ever informed even though it’s a legal requirement: the procedure is too bureaucratic. Besides, it could lead to bad publicity for the school and bad feeling amongst other staff. Headteachers are simply relieved to get rid of the troublesome member of staff. As a result underperforming teachers are simply “recycled” through schools – often into those schools where the children already face the greatest challenges.”
The GTCE and the Government are aware of this problem. The GTCE is engaged in research to find out why numbers of referrals are so low. The DCSF stated, in its Children’s Plan, that: “we will look with social partners at whether more can be done to address the performance of teachers who have the greatest difficulty in carrying out their role effectively. This should include helping them to leave the profession if that is appropriate.” There is concern, however, than in seeking to ease the fears of its “social partners” (i.e. teaching unions) the Government could offer only half-measures on this vitally important issue.
The report makes several detailed recommendations:
- Reducing the time it takes to undertake a capability review (currently it can take up to a year), making them less onerous for employers to manage.
- Transferring the onus to discover and act on the outcomes of capability reviews from employers to the GTCE.
- Using new workforce data to track teachers who leave schools when threatened with performance review.
- The GTCE should provide a package of advice and retraining for those people they remove from the register.