Employers are failing to report poor teachers

7:07pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

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By Sally Jones »

JUST three cases where teachers have been dismissed or resigned in Worcestershire after being found to be incompetent have been referred to the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) in almost seven years, figures show.

Think tank Policy Exchange has released the figures, claiming local councils and headteachers are failing to report incidents.

Employers, in most cases the local education authority, but sometimes the school itself, are legally obliged to refer to the 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 it decides further action should be taken, to: issue a reprimand to the teacher; attach conditions to a teacher's registration (eg further training) or remove a teacher from the register temporarily or permanently.

However, since the GTCE took responsibility for regulating the teaching profession in June 2001, almost two-thirds (97 of 150) of local authorities in England have not referred a single case to the GTCE on grounds of incompetence, according to Policy Exchange.

A further 27 authorities have referred just one case.

According to the figures Worcestershire County Council has referred three cases of incompetency in the past seven years. It has also referred two cases of misconduct since June 2001.

Sue Baker-Williams, head of human resources for the council's children's services, said: "This does seem a very low number in the timescale but I can assure you that we do refer all cases to the GTCE."

The total number of incompetence referrals to the GTCE for the 80 months to January 31 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 eight teachers were barred from the profession and 10 suspended from the register.

Sam Freedman, head of Policy Exchange's education unit, 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 per cent of staff soon after the arrival of a new headteacher. The GTCE are hardly ever informed.

"Headteachers are simply relieved to get rid of the troublesome member of staff."