Another View on the Governmental Quick Non-Fix for
the Falling Academic Standards of New Teachers.
(September 4, 2006)|
|
|
|
|
|
|
News & Views item - September 2006 |
Another View on the Governmental Quick Non-Fix for
the Falling Academic Standards of New Teachers.
(September 4, 2006)
Late last month TFW commented on a study by the Australian National University highlighting the trend that academic standards of new teachers have fallen significantly over the past 20 years and what we saw as an ill conceived suggestion by the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, that what was needed were performance incentives to boost the quality and standard of teachers.
The underlying problem is getting good NEW people to enter the profession. "The suggestion that significantly improving the pay, working conditions as well as the quality of those responsible for training the teachers ought to be addressed seems to have dropped through the cracks." Add to that a rewarding upward career path and you just might move toward significant improvement.
Today Christopher Bantick in an opinion piece in The Age writes, "There can be few more divisive issues in teaching than paying teachers on merit. Merit pay is performance pay by another name... Why performance pay is divisive is that if it were introduced into state - or for that matter, independent - schools then it would pitch teacher against teacher. Measurement of performance would come down to exam results."
Mr Bantick is a Melbourne-based freelance journalist. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and holds degrees in Arts – where he majored in history – and Education. He has taught in Britain up to Oxbridge level. In Australia, he has taught in schools and lectured and tutored at university level. He contributes features, reviews and profiles to a range of newspapers around Australia.
He suggests that the Bishop approach would lead to teachers "[c]ompeting for students, particularly... in the same school [and] will simply turn teacher against teacher and department against department... Where performance pay is fundamentally flawed is that it does not take into account the incremental improvement a teacher may make with a student who does not achieve highly. Nor will it recognise commitment to children who are difficult to manage and just keeping them at school is a success."
Finally, Mr Bantick points up the palpable shallowness of Ms Bishop's approach. "The issue is not about singling out a few teachers to receive greater remuneration, but increasing the pay of teachers broadly. Many have contributed to the education of a child over time..." Unfortunately, he also takes issue with the question of qualifications of teachers, saying, "I am at a loss to see how a PhD in literary theory will accommodate a year 7 English class. Under the Bishop plan of attracting the brightest and best, there is a risk of rampant credentialism where pay is linked to qualifications and performance. Higher degrees do not necessarily make a good teacher."
In mathematics and the sciences knowledge of the subject and the confidence that brings to its teaching is of paramount importance, and encouraging further study by teachers where pertinent ought to be encouraged and rewarded.
|
|
