THE general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) - one of the country's main teaching unions - has been sacked.
Sheila Mechan's contract was terminated after only three weeks in the job. She had been suspended 10 days ago.
A union spokesman described the decision as "regrettable", but necessary after the breakdown of 'crucial working relationships' between Ms Mechan and other officials.
Glasgow-born Ms Mechan, 55, had only taken up the post on April 7.
There was no information about her departure on the SSTA website, which has gone offline.
A union spokesman said: "We can confirm that Sheila Mechan's employment as general secretary of the association was terminated.
"This follows her formal suspension on April 19, less than two weeks after taking up her position on April 7.
"This decision is regrettable, but given the immediate breakdown of a significant number of crucial working relationships, the SSTA decided it was in the association's best interests to move quickly to resolve the situation."
Former acting general secretary Alan McKenzie will take over her role until a permanent successor is found.
Mc Mechan, who has no teaching experience, but had worked in trade unions.
The SSTA had at the time of her appointment described her personality as 'ebbulient' and said she was a natural leader with a good sense of humour.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article