Increase Teachers’ Pay and Scrap Training Fees, Says Social Mobility and Child Poverty Report
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s third annual ‘State of the Nation’ report has called for a rise in teachers’ pay, an end to initial teacher training fees and new incentives for teachers to move to challenging schools. The recommendations form part of the Commission’s response to David Cameron’s post-election commitment to a ‘One […]
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s third annual ‘State of the Nation’ report has called for a rise in teachers’ pay, an end to initial teacher training fees and new incentives for teachers to move to challenging schools.
The recommendations form part of the Commission’s response to David Cameron’s post-election commitment to a ‘One Nation’ agenda over the coming Parliament, which would see Britain become “A place where a good life is in reach for everyone who is willing to work and do the right thing.”
While welcoming the Prime Minister’s aspiration and expressing broad optimism about the future, the Commission notes in its foreward to the report notes a “Gulf between where Britain is today and where the Prime Minister would like it to be,” going on to comment that, “In our report last year, we warned that without a dramatic change in approach to how governments, employers and educators tackled child poverty and social mobility, Britain would become a permanently divided nation. Nothing we have seen in the last 12 months has made us change our view.”
Making pay competitive
Many of the report’s recommendations focus on education, including a call for the government to reduce the current attainment gap between low ability wealthy children and their high ability poorer peers by raising the attainment rates of poor children nationwide to those of inner city London by 2030.
The report also cites issues with teacher recruitment and low-level entry pay as factors that currently deter capable young teachers from joining low performing schools. The Commission’s proposals include making teacher pay competitive with the salaries offered by other graduate employers, scrapping fees for initial teacher training and encouraging teachers to move to challenging schools by trialling new financial incentives, such as a ‘Help to Buy’ scheme for members of the teaching profession.
Other recommendations in the report include introducing a new ‘definition of school readiness’ that to ensure that children are ready for school at the age of five, simplifying the government-funded childcare system to ensure better take-up among working class families and funding research into how parenting skills can be improved.
The report also proposes a ‘zero tolerance’ policy with regards to schools that consistently fail to meet the government’s floor standard of 40% of pupils achieving 5 A* to C grades at GCSE (including maths and English). School would be required to join an academy chain, change their leadership and appoint heads with experience of successfully turing around failing schools.
No robust evidence
In a joint statement, the Commission’s Chair and Deputy Chair, Alan Milburn and Gillian Shepherd said, “The gap between rhetoric and reality has to be closed if the Prime Minister’s one-nation objective is to be realised. Current signs of progress do not go nearly far or fast enough to address the gulf between the divided Britain of the present and the one-nation Britain we aspire to become.”
Among those responding to the report were Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Leaders, who commented, “The Commission has no robust evidence to back its assertion that academy chains, forcing schools to become academies, or the new ‘rigorous’ exams, will promote social mobility. The scant evidence there is points in the opposite direction.
“Nevertheless, despite its limitations ATL welcomes the report, not least for the clear evidence it provides that we are a long, long way from David Cameron’s ambition of creating a country that offers opportunity for all, no matter where they come from.”
Brian Lightman, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, meanwhile remarked that, “We agree with the Commission’s recommendation that teachers’ pay should be improved and that fees for initial teacher training should be scrapped. The country is in the grip of a teacher recruitment crisis and further action is urgently needed. Reversal of the real-terms erosion to teachers’ pay that has taken place in recent years would be a good starting point.”
