The Herald Scotland is reporting that hundreds of teachers from overseas who want to work in Scottish schools would no longer be required to provide criminal records checks under controversial proposals…
The regulatory body for teachers is considering plans to scrap the requirement because of the difficulties in securing checks from some countries.
The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) argues that securing such checks is particularly unreasonable in some cases where teachers are seeking asylum from countries where their lives are at risk.
However, the proposal has sparked a backlash from parents and teaching unions, who argue that the GTCS should be performing as many checks as possible.
More than 500 teachers from overseas have applied to work in Scottish schools over the past five years.
Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said: “The regulation around disclosures for anyone working with children in Scotland is something we often say is overdone, but in this case we believe parents expect that anyone working in a school would be checked…”
Iain Ellis, chairman of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, added: “We believe that checks should be as robust as possible for all teachers working in all Scottish schools and that no-one should be exempt from these checks.”
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland teaching union, also expressed concern…
A GTCS spokesman stressed that no decision had been taken to stop the practice.
He said: “Providing a criminal record check is not straightforward because many countries do not hold criminal records.
“In addition, there are crimes in some countries which are not crimes in the UK.”…
More at: Anger over plan to axe legal checks for overseas teachers
Your thoughts on this one? Do you have sympathy with the points made by the GTCS or believe that no matter how difficult the practical issues may be, the criminal record checks need to stay in place? Please share in the comments or via Twitter…