Teachers revolt over 'check-ups'

Newly-qualified teachers will have the first licences in 2010

Schools Secretary Ed Balls is to be given more than 11,000 postcards from teachers protesting about plans to make them undergo five-yearly "check ups".

From 2010, newly qualified teachers in England will be given what is called a "licence to teach", which will have to be renewed every five years.

Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) have sent postcards to the union to show their opposition.

Ministers say the licence will put teachers on a par with doctors.

The plans - announced in June in an education White Paper - are expected to be fleshed out after the Queens Speech next week when the government will outline its plans for legislation.

In June, Ed Balls said the licence was intended to "boost the status of the profession" and make sure that schools were "facing up to inadequacy".

The proposals divided teachers.

The other big classroom teachers' union, NASUWT, supported the idea, saying it would bring "long-overdue recognition" that teaching was a high status profession.

'Too many hoops'

The NUT says the strength of response to its postcard campaign showed how strongly teachers felt about the plans.

It distributed the postcards in its newspaper and asked readers to send them back to its offices. The cards will now be forwarded to Mr Balls.

Details of how the assessments would be made have not been made public yet, but it is understood head teachers would play a key role.

NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: "Teachers already face a raft of accountability measures from initial teaching training, performance management and Ofsted inspections.

"There are far too many hoops for teachers to jump through already. The government itself says that the teaching profession is the best it has ever been.

"Questioning teachers' abilities yet further will simply demoralise a profession which is already pushed to the limit."

This is not a backdoor way of weeding out underperforming teachers Vernon Coaker, Schools Minister

She added that instead, money should be spent giving individual teachers designated funds for their professional development and that there was a danger a minority of head teachers might be "tempted to use the licence as a short cut for capability procedures against teachers".

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said the licence was about supporting teachers and went hand in hand with an entitlement to professional development.

"It will improve teaching quality where needed and clearly demonstrate to parents that standards are high," he said.

"This is not a backdoor way of weeding out underperforming teachers - it is about making sure every child has the best teaching possible and teachers rightly get extra support when they need it."

Most of the teaching unions were working with the government on the details of how the licence and entitlement would work and a wider consultation would follow, he said.

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