Education in Britain is a right – something to which we all are entitled – but school league tables and performance-related pay for teachers are undermining this fundamental right.
Since the introduction of school league tables, we have a situation whereby school is set against school. Schools should be able to work together to do that for which they exist: ensure a nation of well-educated people (whether that’s academic, sports, drama, music, art or technology). But when league tables are introduced, so is the idea that every school has to fight to be better than the others: to become one of the schools in the Premier League. Just like football.
But education cannot work when treated as a series of football games. It cannot work when targets are introduced – especially when the criteria for those targets have been set by those who know nothing about education; nothing about the daily lives of the pupils in a school; nothing about the daily slog that dedicated teachers endure to help their pupils feel that sense of achievement and self esteem. Good teachers know that, for pupils, this sense will be the difference between understanding a concept and giving up completely.
Imagine a school finds a good way of ensuring its pupils understand algebraic equations: how great it would be to share that with other schools. All pupils – whichever school they attend – would have the opportunity of sharing in this success. But a system in which schools are in competition with other schools does not allow this. Instead, the successful school will keep this knowledge to itself for fear of giving other schools the opportunity to catch up or overtake. This alone will not ensure the innovative school comes out on top, but it might help keep at least one of the other schools down.
To compound this situation, we now have performance-related pay. We are not only in a situation where schools are in competition with one another, but one where teachers within the same school – the same department, even – will be loath to share experience, skills and knowledge with colleagues.
School budgets are limited, so not every teacher in a school – or in a department – can be paid the rate for which excellent performers are entitled. It makes sense now for teachers to protect their own needs. Suddenly within a school it is no longer every pupil who matters: just the pupils whom each teacher teaches. Every teacher needs that higher level salary to ensure their own families have food on the table and can afford that annual holiday. Why risk giving a colleague a helping hand?
This does not sit comfortably with most teachers: they know that, ultimately, the pupils will suffer. But what are they to do? We all want to be rewarded financially for our hard work, and why should teachers be any different? Introduce competition and humans will want to ensure that they do not become the loser.
Is this really what we want education to become in this country? Because it’s already more than half-way there.
Performance-related pay and school league tables are based on arbitrary concepts that cannot be measured fairly. Unlike a football match, it is not always clear who is putting in the most work and dedication. Indeed, the teacher who puts all pupils first will be the loser. Every time.