Put teachers on five-year contracts, says expert By CHRIS MARSHALL Published on Wednesday 23 May 2012 00:00 TEACHERS should be given fixed-term contracts to encourage continued development throughout their careers and drive up attainment in Scotland's schools, it has been argued. Brian McAlinden, a former head teacher at Castlemilk High School in Glasgow, who is now part of the Scottish Government's attainment group, said five-year contracts would provide an "incentive" for the profession, including head teachers, to keep skills up to date. Mr McAlinden, who was appearing in front of the Scottish Parliament's education committee yesterday, said teachers should be required to keep on learning throughout their careers, like a "pilot's licence." He said: "I have said in a number of areas that teachers should have fixed-term contracts. It's not popular, and I usually have to duck when I say it. The biggest incentive is that [when] you know you're coming to the end of your five-year stint and the job is up for re-election, you make sure your CPD [continuing professional development] is up to date ... you will keep your green L-plate up. If you want transformational change, maybe you have to make transformational steps to get there. He later added: "I may change my view on fixed-term contracts, but if teachers are not delivering for young people, then we need to address that and we need local authorities to move more quickly." Mr McAlinden, who was credited with improving exam results while head teacher at Castlemilk , is now part of a five-strong group set up by education secretary Mike Russell last year to look at ways of raising attainment across the country. He said the "silver bullet" for improving results was "properly motivated" teachers and better leadership. He also backed suggestions from Tory education spokeswoman Liz Smith, that head teachers could award teachers bonus payments to improve results, as happens at some schools in England. Speaking after the committee, Ms Smith said: "The idea of fixed-term contracts is certainly something worth looking at, and Mr McAlinden speaks with authority being one of the outstanding heads in the state sector. I think the justification for it is that it really pressurises heads into making good progress on a consistent basis year on year. It would force the pace of improvement if you did not see change. But the country's largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, dismissed the idea of fixed-term contracts as "nonsense." General secretary Larry Flanagan said: "If there are issues around competence, it's the job of the head teacher to use the current system to deal with that. Brian McAlinden as a head teacher was able to do that. Teachers are already one of the most line-managed professions in the world. In Scotland, there are no shortages of checks on teachers. All this would do is introduce a sense of worry and fear that they would be unnecessarily targeted by the head teacher. It would do nothing to attract high-quality graduates into the profession. Labour MSP Neil Findlay, a member of the committee and a former teacher, added: "The notion that teachers and head teachers will perform better because they work under the threat of losing their job is just nonsense."