Becoming Chartered Teachers: Issues of Status, Power and Identity

Abstract

The new category of Chartered Teacher was part of a broad Agreement reached between teachers and authorities in Scotland in 2001 (ScottishExecutive 2001), parochially known as 'McCrone', which awarded Scottish teachers a salary increase and a reduced working week in return for some concessions in working conditions. In response to the hierarchical nature of schooling in Scotland, as observed by the McCrone committee (Scottish Executive 2000), the Chartered Teacher initiative represented a serious attempt to provide an alternative to the top-down model (MacDonald 2004). Chartered Teacher status purported to be reprofessionalising for teachers, offering career enhancement hitherto unattainable to those whose commitment was to pedagogy rather than to educational management. The initiative promised teachers the opportunity to develop as experts in learning and teaching through a qualification route with provision for accreditation of prior learning.