Incompetent Teachers

There’s been quite a lot of educational news this week with teachers who have been declared as incompetent by the (oh so useful) GTC are able to find work in other teaching jobs. The most common scenario appears to be incompetent secondary school teachers becoming primary school teachers. This doesn’t say a lot for the country’s current crop of teachers, whether they are primary or secondary, although the article would imply that “if you aren’t good enough for secondary teaching, then try primary”, which is more than harsh on my primary teaching colleagues.

The article made out that are up to 20,000 incompetent teachers in the classroom nationwide. The trouble is, what defines “incompetent”? There are obvious cases, and one is given in the article I read, that the teacher allowed one student to use an aerosol as a flame-thrower in order to set another pupil’s uniform alight. This person is lucky to hold down any sort of job, let alone one that requires them to look after young people.

There are a number of issues here though:

·         There are a number of trainee teachers who are not up to the job, but universities will not fail them if they last the course. In my first teaching job we had one and tried to fail them, but the university disagreed and passed him. They got a job locally and had been removed from their post by the end of the first term of their teaching career. You will be relieved to hear that many of the poor trainee teachers never actually get employed, as a reference from a school in which they did teaching practise is always sought, and the school won’t give them a glowing reference.

·         There are some teachers who have one or two “good” lessons up their sleeve for when they are observed, but their day-to-day teaching is incompetent. The system of observations of lessons means that many poor teachers will get under the radar. More observations is not the answer though, but regular “drop-ins” or “fly-bys” from senior staff (if they can bear to leave their coffee machine for long enough) would soon root out those who aren’t up to standard.

·         The paperwork, as with most public service jobs, is extensive when going through competency procedures. Even if I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed, there’s still no guarantee that the teacher will be “struck off”. As a result, incompetent teachers are usually pushed into another job at another school and given a glowing reference to aid their cause. I’m not saying it’s right, but I can understand why it happens.

The problem facing education is that there are plenty of competent teachers out there who are leaving the profession for various reasons, and this means that incompetent teachers are more likely to be employed. The government keep saying that we want/need more teachers, but panic buying normally means the acquisition of sub-standard teachers.

Yes, there should be something done about a teacher who is clearly not up to the job, but you do have to bear in mind what is out there to replace them. Is it sometimes the case of better the devil you know in some subjects?