A long-awaited Council for the Teaching Profession is to be set up under a Bill amending the Education Act which is due to start being debated in Parliament tomorrow.

The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) has been calling on the government to set up such a council for the past 12 years. At its biennial conference last month, the union approved a motion underlining the need for a Teachers' Council to regulate the profession.

According to the Bill, the council's duties will be to assess teacher education and training standards, carry out professional development programmes for teachers, examine applications for teachers' warrants and recommend suspension of warrants in case, for example, of proven misconduct.

Recent examples of the withdrawal of warrants concern five teachers who no longer teach after they were convicted of child abuse over the last three years.

The council will carry out investigations into alleged wrongdoing in cases where teachers may have obtained warrants deceitfully, breached their code of ethics, failed to comply with regulations or displayed a lack of skill in carrying out their duties.

Appointed by the Education Minister, the nine members of the council would include a chairman with the qualifications of a magistrate or judge, three registered teachers with eight or more years of experience chosen by the minister, two appointed by teachers' associations, two teachers nominated by the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta and a parents' representative.

Under the Bill, the education department is to be substituted by two directorates - one responsible for the running of state schools and the other to serve as regulator of all schools in Malta. This is part of the education reforms launched last year in a document called For All Children To Succeed.

Listing the functions of the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education, which will assume the regulatory functions, the Bill says that this new entity will "propose to the minister a National Curriculum Framework which promotes a lifelong learning policy and strategy".

Generally, this directorate will be responsible for implementing policy in national education, ensuring that the national curriculum is followed in all schools and through all levels.

Besides evaluating and auditing programmes and services to ensure good practice, the Quality and Standards Directorate will assess the financial and economic aspects of the education system and issue licences for the opening of schools.

An Education Inspectorate shall be set up within the Quality and Standards Directorate to provide "a professional service of support, guidance, monitoring, inspection, evaluation and reporting on the process of teaching in schools, on the application of the curriculum, syllabi, pedagogy, assessment and examinations".

Education officers within the inspectorate will be empowered to enter any college, school or classroom to report on the teaching process, the physical environment and educational standards.

All educational institutions will be obliged to provide any information that the Quality and Standards Directorate may request.

The Directorate for Educational Services will be responsible for running state schools, maintaining buildings and furniture, laboratories and libraries, providing teaching tools, sports, drama and holding and supporting cultural activities. It will provide administrative support to schools and engage teachers and support staff.

The directorate will also forge ahead with plans to group state schools into colleges, both administratively and financially. The Bill states that both directorates are to respect the diversity of educational institutions while creating links between different schools, be they private, Church or state-owned.

Each directorate will be headed by a director general who will be given a three-year renewable term. Directorates will have an executive management, officers and employees.

Besides the directorates, the Bill provides for the setting up of a Permanent Committee for Education presided by the Minister of Education which will discuss education policy and the direction which Maltese education should take.

The committee will include the Education Ministry's permanent secretary, the directors general of the new directorates, the chief executive officer of the National Commission for Higher Education and other directors or officers whom the minister might request to attend.

The Bill also introduces the Malta College of Arts Science and Technology into law and creates a legal framework for the grouping of state schools into colleges.

Furthermore, it gives legal recognition to the National Commission for Higher Education which advises the government on issues related to higher education institutions such as the university.

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