Plans for a review of the agreement reached a decade ago on teacher employment were announced today by Education Secretary Michael Russell. The review of the 2001 agreement, which followed the McCrone report into teachers’ pay and conditions, is to be chaired by Professor Gerry McCormac, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stirling.
The McCormac Review will examine a range of issues related to teacher employment, including whether the agreement:
· is delivering all the benefits that were intended for both teachers and pupils
· is suited to the delivery of Curriculum for Excellence
· attracts the most-talented people into the teaching profession and promotes strong leadership.
It will also examine the cost and size of the teacher workforce in the context of the current financial climate.
Professor McCormac said: "I am very pleased to have been asked by the Cabinet Secretary to Chair this review to consider whether the current arrangements for teacher employment are delivering the best possible educational outcomes for our children and young people. The Review Group will approach this challenging piece of work with an open mind. We will consider the views of all with an interest in Scottish education and make recommendations as to how future arrangements can be improved to achieve the expected outcomes.”
Mr Russell said: “Ten years on from the landmark report of the McCrone Inquiry, and the agreement on pay and conditions which followed, the time is right for a fundamental review of the changes it has engineered. McCrone has undoubtedly delivered a well-paid, highly-qualified, professional workforce and we now have tens of thousands of talented teachers teaching hundreds of thousands of better-educated pupils.
“However, a lot has changed in the past decade, most notably the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence, which provides new challenges for teachers and pupils, and we need to ensure we continue to attract the right kind of people into the profession to deliver this new approach to learning and teaching.
“Graham Donaldson’s recently-completed review of teacher education also makes a number of important recommendations for training the teachers of the future and this review of McCrone will perfectly complement the changes envisaged in the Donaldson report. I am grateful to Professor McCormac and his team for agreeing to take on this task and I am sure they will bring back clear and far-sighted recommendations.”
Background
The Scottish Government announced its intention to review the McCrone agreement on teacher employment in November 2010 as part of the agreement reached with the COSLA leadership, which in turn formed part of the draft Budget.
Professor Gerry McCormac is Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stirling. He is a former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast and a scientist with a significant research record in both Space Physics and Carbon Dating who worked on the NASA Dynamics Explorer satellite programme while at the University of Michigan. He has served on the Northern Ireland (NI) Committee of the Institute of Directors, the NI Economic Development Forum, the NI Science and Industry Panel (MATRIX), the boards of both the NI Science Park and Business in the Community and was a Director and Chair of the Management Board of Queen’s University’s commercialisation company, QUBIS. He is currently a member of Universities Scotland, Universities UK, The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Executive Committee, the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) Scottish Committee, the United States/Northern Ireland Economic Development Working Group and a board member of Invest Northern Ireland.
The other members of the review are:
· Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh – Solicitor/businesswoman/actress
· Graham Donaldson – Former Senior Chief inspector of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education
· Isabelle Boyd – Headteacher, Cardinal Newman High School, Bellshill
· Sue Bruce – Chief Executive, Edinburgh City Council
· Moira McCrossan – Retired primary headteacher/past President of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
· Alf Young – Journalist/Economist
The review will report by June 2011 with a view to implementing agreed recommendations from August 2012.
Details of ‘A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century’, the 2001 agreement reached following the recommendations of the McCrone Inquiry, can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2001/01/7959/File-1
