ABSTRACT
Teaching is not the only profession where there has been more public scrutiny of members’ competence in recent years. Most professions have devised a set of procedures for looking at alleged incompetence and these have, from time to time, been subject to internal and external comment and scrutiny. Furthermore, procedures for looking at competence and incompetence in teaching are an issue in many countries, including those where there is no commonly agreed means of appraising teachers’ skill, or lack of it. There is not a great deal of systematic research in the field, as was pointed out in Chapter 1, but it is worth considering such evidence and analysis as exists.
