Teaching standards body urges Welsh Assembly Government to close regulation loophole

The General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) is calling for the registration of instructors and overseas trained teachers currently teaching in schools across Wales.

The GTCW wants instructors to be regulated to ensure that all teachers adhere to the appropriate standards of professional conduct and competence.

Instructors with special qualifications or experience are able to undertake the “specified work” of a teacher without supervision as long as no suitably qualified teachers are available and the employer is satisfied they are suitably qualified.

But, since the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme in October last year, a loophole has appeared meaning that instructors are not regulated by any central organisation.

Gary Brace, chief executive of the GTCW explained: “We estimate that around 100 instructors are currently working in schools in Wales, often many have been in schools for some time. We are now in the situation where two people undertaking identical teaching duties could both be dismissed for an identical reason. But, the registered teacher would be referred to GTCW, while the instructor would not be investigated by any regulatory authority and would be free to continue undertaking work as a teacher in another school.”

There are also a small number of teachers from outside the European Area who may also teach for a period of up to two years without any form of regulation.

GTCW has written to the Education Minister, Leighton Andrews, to advise that individuals who undertake the specified work of a teacher, unsupervised, should be provisionally registered with GTCW, creating a new category of registration.

This is already the situation in England, where instructors and overseas trained teachers have been provisionally registered by the General Teaching Council for England since September 2008.

Gary Brace, chief executive of the GTCW said: “We want to reassure parents that all those who teach our children unsupervised are regulated.

“As an organisation we are committed to promoting the highest standards within the teaching profession, and want to ensure that all individuals teaching in schools across Wales are competent teachers who conduct themselves appropriately.”

The GTCW is asking the Welsh Assembly Government to consider introducing new regulations as soon as possible to ensure instructors and overseas trained teachers are professionally regulated.