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What is Fitness to Teach?
The fitness to teach process exists to maintain trust in teachers and teaching. It is about ensuring that teachers and college lecturers have the skills, knowledge and character to teach learners safely and effectively.
We manage the risk a teacher or college lecturer may pose now and in the future. We do this by:
refusing registration;
placing restrictions on registration; or
removing registration.
Our standards for teachers are set out in the:
- Code of Professionalism and Conduct, and
- Standard for Provisional Registration (PDF 385 KB) and Standard for Full Registration (PDF 393 KB).
If teachers and college lecturers meet and maintain these standards, this is what we call being fit to teach.
It is a legal requirement for all people employed as teachers in local authority and independent schools in Scotland to be registered with GTC Scotland. As part of agreed national terms and conditions of employment, college lecturers must register with us.
We rely on employers and other partners to help us:
- investigate the cases we should as a professional regulator and
- ensure that our investigations are as effective as possible.
Related legislation
- Our role in law: The Public Services Reform (General Teaching Council for Scotland) Order 2011
- Requirement for teachers working in Scotland’s Local Authorities to register: The Requirements for Teachers (Scotland) Regulations 2005
- Requirement for teachers in Independent and Grant Aided Schools to register: The Registration of Independent Schools (Prescribed Person) (Scotland) Regulations 2017
- Agreement for College Lecturers to register: National Joint Negotiating Committee Circular 03/18