Education Committee, 07 Dec 2005
Meeting date: Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Official Report
276KB pdf
Subordinate Legislation
Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (SSI 2005/571)
Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to the 23rd meeting of the Education Committee in 2005. That seems like an awful lot of meetings, but there are only two this year to go after this one.
The first of today's two agenda items is the Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (SSI 2005/571). I draw members' attention to the letter that we have received from the Scottish Executive, which indicates that it intends to make amending regulations, either before the recess or early in the new year, to address the issue that was raised in the Subordinate Legislation Committee's report, which is attached to today's paper. Do any members wish to ask any questions or raise any issues?
I have two matters to raise. First, will the Executive withdraw the Scottish statutory instrument and re-present it as amended? I see heads shaking, so I think that the answer is that it will not.
I think the Executive is going ahead with this SSI; it will then make amending regulations. Only one part of the regulations requires amendment.
I have a further question. The explanatory note accompanying the regulations refers to the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Act 2004. One of the issues that arose during evidence taking on that bill was the question whether teachers in independent schools should be registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland. That was not a central issue at the time, but it was touched on during evidence. Regulation 1(2)(c) states:
"‘the Council' means the General Teaching Council for Scotland".
I did not spot any reference to the GTC in the schedules, however—unless it will be covered in the forthcoming amendments. Ministers would have to have further discussions with independent schools were they to impose a requirement that, for the purposes of registration, all teachers must be members of the GTC. I do not know whether we could seek clarification from ministers on that.
The council is referred to in schedule 2, paragraph 2(d). It says:
"their qualifications, the subject or subjects for which they are employed to teach, and confirmation of whether or not they are registered with the Council."
Where is that?
That is in schedule 2, on page 6. I think that that is the only reference to the council.
The paragraph only says:
"confirmation of whether or not they are registered with the Council."
It does not say that teachers are required to be registered with the council. We should bear it in mind that the matter was raised not just by us, but by independent schools, which recognised that it was an issue. We might want to ask the minister whether there have been further developments.
We can raise the matter with the minister. It seems that there are no further comments on the instrument. Subject to the reference that has been made to the forthcoming amending regulations, do we agree that the committee has nothing to report on the regulations?
Members indicated agreement.