Accreditation process and requirements review consultation

Closing date:

March

2026

External body:

We are currently consulting on proposed changes to our Accreditation Policy. This draft policy aims to provide a streamlined source of information and guidance that clearly sets out what the process for accrediting teaching qualification programmes is, why it’s necessary, and what our expectations in overseeing it are.

What are we consulting on

A lot has changed since we assumed formal responsibility from the Scottish Government for the accreditation process in 2012. The number of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes available and the providers offering them has increased, and it has also become a legal requirement for college lecturers to register with us and for further education teaching qualification programmes (TQFE) to be accredited. The landscape has changed and we believe that aspects of our current practice need to be brought up to date to reflect this.

We are therefore consulting on changes to our Accreditation Policy following a review of our accreditation process and requirements, including:

its name
one document that covers programmes of ITE and TQFE
a statement of general principles to guide the process
one section that sets out the requirement for the content, nature and duration of programmes of ITE with a stronger focus placed on ensuring the outcome of these is the achievement of the Standard for Provisional Registration
a new section setting out expectations for teacher educators and programme staffing.

How to respond

You can find links to the consultation document and associated annexes below. You can either respond via our online questionnaire, or if you would prefer, there is a Word version of the consultation questionnaire. If you do not wish to use either of these formats, we will still need you to complete the respondent information section on page 10 of the questionnaire Word document.

If you have any further accessibility issues, please contact us at gtcs@gtcs.org.uk with the subject line ‘Accreditation Policy consultation – accessibility’.

Please respond no later than 5:00pm on Thursday 12 March 2026. If you think you might have any problems meeting that deadline, please let us know in advance otherwise we might not be able to consider your response.