PROPOSALS to give powers to the General Teaching Council for Scotland to bar incompetent teachers from the classroom were unveiled yesterday in the biggest review of the body's structure since it was set up in 1965.

At present, teachers can be struck off by the GTC only because of misconduct, which often involves criminal convictions.

The report suggests its powers should be extended to teachers who are dismissed for incompetence, or resign before a hearing.

At present, teachers sacked for incompetence can apply for jobs in other schools. The review, however, calls for incompetent teachers to be stripped of their GTC registration, without which they cannot teach in the state sector.

The GTC's powers currently extend largely to preventing student teachers from continuing to teach beyond their two-year probationary period.

The new policy has been put forward in a consultative document into the future of the GTC for Scotland, which in turn sprang out of a review of the organisation by management consultants Deloitte and Touche, commissioned last year by then Scottish Education Minister Helen Liddell.

Once consultation is complete, the Scottish Executive is likely to include the resulting proposals in its Education Bill later this year.

A parallel consultation is likely to be carried out this summer involving teaching unions and local authorities into the procedures open to education authorities for sacking teachers.

An anomaly has dogged the sector since local government reorganisation three years ago, in which regulations were implemented allowing a director of education to sack a teacher, instead of an elected members' committee, as was previously the case.

However, unions have successfully challenged the regulation within a number of authorities and negotiations are planned to provide clarification and ultimately a negotiated agreement through the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee.

Mr Sam Galbraith, Minister for children and education, said: ''In the case of the small number of teachers who do not meet the necessary standard, I believe it is right that the GTC should be able to consider whether they should be allowed to remain in the profession.

''I am a firm believer in professional self-regulation. I am putting forward proposals to modernise the GTC and extend its powers to allow it to strengthen and expand its role in raising standards and enhancing professionalism.''

The report also suggests that less drastic measures should be available in discipline cases, such as temporary suspension and written warnings.

Mr Ian McKay, assistant secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, gave a broad welcome to the report as ''a start to addressing issues in the GTC which have needed to be addressed for some time''. However, he saw some ''anomalies'', such as a proposal to grant an automatic place on the GTC to the independent schools sector, while not making it compulsory for all teachers in that sector to be GTC-registered.

Mrs Barbara Clark, assistant general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, warned that the proposed reduction in teacher representation on the council, from 30 out of 40 to 25 out of 29, giving teachers a majority of only one, could make it difficult for teachers to retain a majority on some of the GTC's committees.

The president of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, Mr Michael O'Neill, said his organisation had argued that if the GTC was to act in the public interest, it was ''inappropriate'' to have a majority of teachers sitting in judgment on themselves.

However, Mrs Judith Gillespie, development manager for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said that if teachers' professional standing was to be enhanced, the principle of teachers being allowed to be self-regulating had to be maintained.

Mr Brian Monteith, the Scottish Conservative Education spokes-man, said: ''The Government talks of giving the GTC powers to strike off failing teachers, but only if the teacher has been dismissed by the local authority. The record of local authorities of dismissing teachers for poor performance is very poor to say the least, and is a very rare occurrence.

''We would like to see the power of hire and fire of teachers to be handed to headteachers and school boards.''

SNP Shadow Education Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: ''In principle, I have no objection as long as we keep things in perspective. When we are talking about incompetent teachers we are talking about a tiny minority.''

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