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Education Minister Ruairi Quinn today announced that he is moving to significantly increase the powers available to the Teaching Council, the regulatory body for teachers.

Under amended legislation, which is due to go to the Oireachtas, the Teaching Council will have a range of new sanctions at its disposal to deal with poor and under-performing teachers. Up until now, a teacher had to be deemed “unfit to teach” before the Teaching Council could impose any sanctions.

The Teaching Council will be able to impose sanctions that are consistent with the seriousness of findings against a teacher. These will range from advice, admonishment or censure to suspension or removal from the Teaching Council’s register.

Minister Quinn said:

The new sanctions available to the Teaching Council are more in line with those available to other professional regulators such as the Medical Council or An Bord Altranais. The operation by the Council of robust fitness to teach procedures is important for the public and teachers so that they have full confidence in the teaching profession. This is a further positive step in the full professionalisation of teaching.

The vast majority of teachers in our classrooms perform well. But for the small minority who do not, I believe that the Teaching Council will now have at its disposal the right tools to deal with cases of serious misconduct and to improve and assist poorly performing teachers.

I also believe that these new powers to investigate allegations of misconduct and under performance will mean that parents have a method of having genuine complaints about teaching standards investigated.