Teacher qualification in further education - draft guidance and general determination: consultation

Consultation Document

As part of the 2017 national bargaining agreement, the Employers’ Association (now College Employers Scotland) and EIS-FELA agreed that college lecturers will require professional registration. As a result, registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) now forms part of the agreed national terms and conditions of employment for all college lecturers employed in a Scottish college under the harmonisation arrangements. Registration for college lecturers is not a legislative requirement but rather an employment requirement. The College Lecturer Registration Working Group (CLRWG) was set up, with Scottish Government participation, in December 2018 to take forward this work.

Following a request from Mr Lochhead, the then Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, the CLRWG submitted a report reviewing the TQFE landscape to Ministers in December 2020. In response, the Minister asked that the CLRWG focus on enabling the registration project within the current legislative framework. In August 2022, the Scottish Government set up a short-life, task-and-finish working group (made up of members of the CLRWG) tasked with reviewing key policy documents that set out entry requirements and a model scheme of provision for TQFE, that had not been reviewed since 2006. The Group also explored the TQFE accreditation process.

This consultation seeks views on both the draft determination and on the guidance document that sets out the entry requirements and model scheme of provision for TQFE and have been reviewed and developed by the Short life Working Group.