Varning och återkallelse av lärarlegitimation : Systematisering, problematisering och undersökning

On July 1, 2011, a system of teacher certification was introduced through the Act (2011: 189) amending the Swedish Education Act. The intention of a system of teacher certification was to make it harder for people without adequate education to work as teachers. These persons are not forbidden to act as teachers but will find it difficult to work in the school system as they cannot perform the same tasks as a certified teacher, e.g. they may not teach students and set grades independently and can only be temporary employed. In order to support a system with teacher certification for teachers, the Teachers Responsibility Board was formed. It ́s mission is, inter alia, to investigate cases of warning and revocation of teacher certification, Chapter 2, Section 23 Swedish Education Act (2010: 800). This essay investigates these cases more closely with focus on systematization and problematizing, analyzing them with a legal dogmatic method blended with an administrative judicial method. There are no legal studies in this field, which justifies the need to investigate this topic further. It is desirable that a system of teacher certification has support by the relevant professions related to the decisions of the Teachers Responsibility Board. This may lead to further legitimacy for the decisions from the Board. The Teachers board of responsibility is composed of a chairman who is or has been a judge and other members who have expertise and practical experience in the school system. The intention is that the composition of the Teachers Responsibility Board should reflect the opinions of the professions concerned by the Board ́s decision. There are reasons to investigate if this is the case. In order to accomplish this, a study of the perceptions of teachers and principals related to five Board cases, was done applying the legal sociology method. Inaptness from the teacher in his/her profession is the least frequent category of cases in which the Teachers Responsibility Board has given a verdict. No teacher has so far had his or her teaching certificate revoked due to gross inaptness.Teachers that have committed a crime related to their profession, have in all these cases been assigned a warning or had their teaching certificate revoked by the Teachers Responsibility Board or higher authority. There is room for a teacher who has committed physical harassment, mental harassment or otherwise behaved improperly without committing a crime, to avoid disciplinary punishment from the Teachers Responsibility Board. An exception is when a teacher has committed a mental offense that can be linked to the grounds of discrimination. In these cases, the teacher has always been assigned a disciplinary sentence. Teachers and principals did not assess the cases in the same way as the Teachers Responsibility Board. These two groups were more severe in their assessment, i.e. wishing a harder disciplinary sanction than the one issued by the Teachers Disciplinary Board. Teachers were, in turn, harsher in their opinions than principals Female and male teachers largely had the same view on the cases with one important exception. Male teachers were more likely to revoke a teacher's certificate because of inaptness than female teachers