Teachers will face five-year check-ups to ensure they are fit to teach and could be banned from the classroom if they are not up to scratch, the Government has announced.
Children's secretary Ed Balls said he will introduce a "licence to teach" to place teachers on a par with doctors and solicitors.
The renewable licence, outlined in the Schools White Paper, is a way of weeding out poor teachers.
Education experts have estimated thousands are under-performing.
The licence will be introduced for newly qualified teachers and those returning to the profession from next year, before being rolled out across the profession. To keep their licence teachers will have to demonstrate they have "up-to-date skills and learning to be effective in the classroom", or face having it revoked.
The licence will be overseen by the General Teaching Council for England, with headteachers deciding if a licence is renewed. Teachers who have their licence referred to the GTC will be able to continue teaching in the interim.
The licence plan received a mixed response from teaching unions.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: "It has the potential to give qualified teacher status the long overdue recognition that it is a high status qualification."
But Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "There are no shortages of accountability measures against which teachers are judged, from initial teaching training, through their induction year and Ofsted inspections. Teachers' capacity and practice are persistently under review."
Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove dismissed the idea as a gimmick. He said: "Instead of real steps to improve teaching, such as giving heads the power to pay bonuses to specialist teachers or reforming teacher training, Ed Balls proposes yet another huge bureaucratic measure that will cost a fortune and cause all sorts of problems. We don't support it."
