This week around 30,000 primary and intermediate school teachers have been on strike, closing nearly 2,000 schools for a day. To date, there appears to have been general public support for the industrial action, but the jury is still out as to whether this will continue if the action is prolonged, especially if it is joined by secondary teachers a little way down the track, as has been mooted.
There are early signs, however, that it is
in danger of becoming a lost opportunity, just one more round of action across
the public sector that has escalated since the current government took office,
and let public servants across the board believe nirvana was at hand, an
impression Ministers have been keen to foster but not so rapidly deliver.
The case for increased investment in
education is strong. The pace of change in contemporary society, the changing
international cultural, social, economic and political environments, as well as
new emerging industries to replace old technologies are all placing performance
pressure on the education sector. Parents increasingly look to our having a
world class education system to equip their children with the skills and
capacities these changes are requiring. So the question quickly becomes how the
teaching profession contributes to this rapidly changing environment.
While better salaries for teachers is
undoubtedly an important component of this jigsaw, it is by no means the only
one, and claims from the teachers' unions that their salary claims are about a
better "investment' in education are questionable. At the same time,
issues about teachers' conditions of service need to go under the microscope
and be assessed alongside other priority areas in education, such as buildings
and facilities, access to technology, professional development and training,
and performance accountability. Wider issues relating to recruitment and
retention of teachers and the structure of the teaching profession also need to
be addressed. Even the teachers' unions acknowledge the unacceptably high rates
of teachers leaving the profession after the first few years when they strike
the bottleneck of insufficient promotion opportunities above them, but they seem
less enthusiastic about focusing on them.
A simple corollary of this is that paying
teachers more, without addressing these broader issues will solve nothing. So
while overall salary rates are being considered, the issue of how younger
teachers can have a more attractive career pathway must also be resolved. Now
this is a much more difficult matter because it inevitably raises the question
of how older and poorer performing teachers (by no means the same thing) can be
moved on, to make way for their younger, or more capable, colleagues.
To date, teachers seem to have shown less
interest in these issues, preferring instead the argument that if all teachers
were just paid more, many of their retention and career development concerns would
be dealt with. Given that the deeper questions also lead quickly to other
issues - like performance payments to attract and retain better teachers, or
flexibility for Boards of Trustees to reward their better teachers in other
ways to ensure their retention - the unions' position is understandable. After
all, more flexibility within the workforce, and differing arrangements for
certain groups of teachers, inevitably weakens the strength of the collective
approach that lies at the core of the way the unions work.
But here is where the current industrial
action risks becoming a lost opportunity. Parents are driven by wanting the
best for their children - the best teachers in the classroom, with the best of
equipment and resources available to them. For many of them, the idea of paying
good teachers more, and moving poorer teachers aside is a no-brainer. After
all, their children deserve no less than the best. They are far less concerned
about issues like collegiality and teaching being a collaborative not a
competitive profession, for example, if they see those things getting in the
way of their children getting the best.
At the moment, parents broadly support
their teachers. But if the current industrial action becomes prolonged and
narrowly focused on just bigger salary increases, that support will likely quickly
evaporate. For the sake of our children, who are ultimately a far bigger part
of this equation than teachers or politicians, it is vital that the wider issue
of the best structure for the modern teaching profession now assumes centre
stage, and that salary issues are considered in relation to that. Failure to
take the chance to do so, would be a lost opportunity from which ultimately
no-one will benefit.
As Peter says, the whole issue of education funding must be addressed - not just teachers' pay. The unions have long held the narrow view that pay all teachers more will solve most of the problems. That view seems to be based on the ideology that any teacher can teach anything and all teachers perform equally. No sector in the workforce operates on that basis because not all workers have equal skills or abilities. Pay should be based (among other things) on performance which teachers' pay is not.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, education should have a much higher public investment and be lifelong than at present so that the whole of society benefits. Education is largely a public not private good.