The Teacher Qualification Service (TQS) was established in 1969. Prior to this, the British Columbia Department of Education issued certificates to teachers which allowed them to teach in BC public schools and assisted school districts in determining their placement on district salary grids. The Department of Education decided that the determination of teacher salaries should be separated from the function of certification. It was because of this in 1968 that the BC School Trustees Association and the BC Teachers' Federation began negotiations to create a neutral and independent body to deal with the issue of relating teacher salaries to their level of training.

The TQS was launched September 1, 1969, to advise teachers and school boards regarding teachers' qualifications. It began issuing to teachers a TQS card indicating a category which reflected the teacher's level of training. The TQS category replaced the teaching certificate issued by the Department of Education as one of the main factors determining placement on a district's salary grid.

Today, the TQS continues its role of evaluating B C public school teachers' professional and academic qualifications and assigns categories based on these qualifications. The organization is a non-profit society funded jointly by the BC Teachers' Federation and the BC School Trustees Association.

The TQS is a small, but efficient office. A staff of four combines their energies to process over four thousand applications annually.

The staff consists of the Director of Evaluation, Carl Post; Evaluator, Burton Deeter; Senior Office Assistant, Michelle McQuaig and the Office Assistant Erika Schrank.

The office maintains microfiche records of every teacher assigned a TQS category since 1969 (approximately 150,000). In 1992 the office was automated and a computer database maintains evaluation records for every evaluation and all correspondence issued from the office.

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