Home > Campaigns > A Council for Teachers

A Council for Teachers

Creating a Teaching Council we can trust

Teachers understand the need to have a registration body that ensures the profession retains its high standards. 

They need their council to be cost-effective and they need to trust that it will work for teachers, not against them.

The New Council

To work well, it's got to be simple.

A new Teaching Council will administer teacher registration and oversee teacher competency proceedings in order to keep professional standards high - nothing more, nothing less.

Its board will reflect the education sector and its staff salaries linked to teaching salaries.

Conduct and competency proceedings will be streamlined and re-certification automatic, in order to achieve a cost-effective and efficient council.

All it will take to make that a reality is a few amendments to the law. Together we can make that happen.

Teaching Council 2

Court Action

The PPTA won a judicial review to have the court review the decisions made by the Teaching Council in relation to the fees increases and the change to annual certification.

The judicial review found that the new Teaching Council fees were unlawful and that there had been no consultation about the change to annual certification.

The new fees were overturned and triennial certification was reinstated.

Legislation Changes

The government is changing the legislation so that the Teaching Council can now charge fees for all its functions.

PPTA members spoke out in force at the select committee to oppose these changes. See them in action here

Teaching Council Governance Board Elections

We want the education sector to have a strong voice on the governance board. Elections for the secondary teacher and principal reps are now open.

The new fees consultation process

We have been clear with the Teaching Council that the new consultation must not merely be an exercise in informing teachers of the Teaching Council’s current actual costs. It must be a consultation on what teachers consider to be reasonable costs to be charged by their registration body, that all teachers can afford to pay, in a time of considerable social and economic pressure. We wrote to the Teaching Council on the 17th of November to seek clarification on some of our concerns. We have not received a response yet.