New CEO and Registrar at GTC Scotland

Ken Muir, CEO and Registrar of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), the independent professional body for the teaching profession in Scotland, is retiring on 12 March 2021 after seven and a half years in post. Prior to moving to GTCS, Ken was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Head of Inspection in Scotland.

During his time as CEO, Ken has significantly updated GTCS’s internal procedures and infrastructure, introducing the widespread use of technology and revised staffing and salary structures. Externally, he has led the successful introduction of Professional Update for all 76500 teachers on GTCS’s Register which involves the body signing off every five years the professional learning of all registrants. He has also led the move to require that all college lecturers and teachers in independent schools are registered with GTCS, both of which become mandatory in law from this summer in Scotland.

Under Ken’s leadership, GTCS has recently introduced refreshed Professional Standards for the teaching profession in Scotland and he led the recent campaign that successfully forced the UK Government to concede to the teaching profession being made exempt from the requirements of the UK Internal Market Bill. An expert in Finnish education, Ken has long been involved in delivering to national and international education events, an ongoing one of which is his planning of the virtual event this May for the global International Forum for Teaching Regulatory Authorities (IFTRA), to be hosted by GTCS.

Ken’s successor is Dr Pauline Stephen. Pauline began her career as a primary teacher, rising to be the Principal Educational Psychologist and Head of Inclusion and Integration in one of Scotland’s local authorities before becoming its Director of Schools and Learning, and Chief Education Officer. It is from this post that she was recruited to GTCS in October 2019 as its Director of Education, Registration and Professional Learning.

PARN is grateful for GTCS’s long-standing membership and Ken’s engagement with our services, including the CEO Forum and research projects. We wish him the best of luck for the future and we look forward to working with Pauline going forward.