Teachers to face five year tests to ensure fitness for job

Jul 2 2009 by Nicola Juncar, The Journal

The Government announced this week it is to introduce a licence to teach to weed out poor teachers from the profession. A former North East headteacher backs the plan, but teaching unions have mixed views. Nicola Juncar reports

TEACHERS are to face five-year check-ups to ensure they are fit to teach and could be banned from the classroom if they are not up to scratch.

Children’s secretary Ed Balls this week announced he is introducing a “licence to teach” which he said will put teachers on a par with doctors and solicitors.

The licence, outlined in the Schools White Paper, is a way of weeding out poor teachers, after education experts estimated thousands are under-performing.

Dr John Dunford, the former headteacher at Durham Johnston, in Durham City, supports the plan, saying teachers should be made accountable for their performance.

Dr Dunford, now the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The licence to teach could be a valuable step toward reprofessionalising a teaching profession that has been quite seriously hampered over the past 20 years by top-down regulation in curriculum and assessment.

“We expect our doctors to be up to date when they treat us. It’s reasonable to expect teachers to be up to date too.”

The licence will be introduced for newly-qualified teachers and those returning to the profession from next year, before being rolled out to include all.

Dr Dunford said: “I am pleased that the Government is not setting out to license the whole profession at once, which would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

“It’s sensible to roll out the programme with those who are returning to teaching after a substantial break.”