ABSTRACT
The goals of the registration movement were to ensure that the teaching profession should be self-governing, designed to exercise some control over entry to the profession, to maintain standards of discipline and to articulate a voice with an authority to represent the interest of teachers. Marxist theory alongside a significant body of other theoretical analysis focuses on evidence in support of the premise that teaching is a profession or that teachers are in a position to form a council akin to the professional bodies in medicine and law. At the beginning of the twentieth century professionalism carried with its ideological overtones of a political nature and the introduction of a register was seen as a panacea to all teachers' problems. Teachers were to be regarded as state functionaries and a struggle emerged that was symbolised by the demand for a register of teachers.
