The government is committed to the establishment of a General Teaching Council. This was confirmed by the inclusion of measures within the recent Teaching and Higher Education Act. Liberal Democrats have long argued for this, and we welcome the recognition that more attention needs to be paid to teachers.

However, the Government's measures do not begin to go as far as Liberal Democrats want. In particular, the current scheme for a General Teaching Council is not truly representative of teachers and, because of this, teachers do not have the control of their own profession.

We have great confidence that, if teachers are given this responsibility, they will discharge it effectively and to the benefit of the education system.

Recruiting and retaining good teachers is not just a matter of financial rewards. Appropriate class sizes are vitally important. Teachers crucially need decent buildings to work in and good levels of equipment, books and materials.

They need relief from endless government directives and unnecessary bureaucracy. They need to be able to update their knowledge and skills through a process of continuous professional development. This should increasingly involve sabbatical terms on courses approved by the General Teaching Council.

Minimum curriculum

'High-flying' graduates will not be attracted to a profession where there is no room for imagination or innovation. Successive governments have been too ready not only to tell professional teachers what to teach but how to teach. Liberal Democrats want the National Curriculum to be replaced with a minimum curriculum entitlement.

While we firmly believe that development of the General Teaching Council will greatly enhance the status of the profession amongst 'high-flying' graduates, it is equally clear that unless salary levels and career prospects are improved significantly, the teaching profession will continue to fail to attract the high fliers.

We believe that any crude attempts to top up some teachers' salaries on the basis of simplistic measurements of pupil achievement will fail and that such plans would set teacher against teacher within school staff rooms. However, we believe that teachers should have the opportunity to have increased competence recognised through increased salaries.

We have long proposed that teachers should no longer be paid salary increases just because they were one year older. They should have the right to continuous professional development, and their salary increases should reflect both achievement in the classroom and successful completion of approved courses.

Professional college

Not all good graduates are suited to teaching, and it is important that applicants for post-graduate certificate of education (PGCE) courses are carefully interviewed and assessed. Another significant factor in attracting the right kind of graduates into teaching would be to offer PGCE students a training salary of around 50% of the starting salary for qualified teachers.

However, our key proposal is that there should be a 'College of Teachers' under the auspices of the General Teaching Council, which would offer a number of grades of membership (such as Associate, Member, Graduate and Fellow) to teachers.

The College would award these grades after assessment of both theoretical and practical classroom skills, in much the same way as surgeons qualify for different grades of membership of the Royal College of Surgeons. Fellows would be expected to maintain their award by being re-assessed every five years.

All schools would have allocated to them a certain proportion of 'Fellowship grade posts', which attract extra salary, for which only Fellows of the College could apply. Schools that are identified as having difficulties could have extra Fellowship posts granted to them on a temporary basis, in order to attract highly skilled teachers.

This proposal would ensure that there is an external independent assessment of the competency of teachers that would precede any consideration for a Fellowship post in a school, and that continued occupancy of the post would depend on the holder maintaining and enhancing his or her professional skills.

Liberal Democrat proposals all aim at establishing true professionalism for the teachers in our schools and colleges, as a vital key to raising the standards of pupils.