Making performance pay

To achieve a long-term rise in standards, ministries must find ways of motivating teachers to perform better, says education technical director John Martin.

Why do we get involved in education development? It’s to help children learn better. Therefore, we want to help teachers become better teachers.

We implicitly understand that better performance is important, but unless we state this explicitly we risk being distracted by single aspects of performance. For example, training contributes to better performance but it is not the only contributory factor.

Teachers will only aspire to improve if they are incentivised to do so through pay and conditions linked to performance, if they are held accountable, and if they are satisfied in their jobs.

Do better, get promoted?

Promotion is typically on a linear scale, dependent on age rather than ability. If I get promoted, will I get paid more? Not much, because the gradient of pay from top to bottom is very gradual, offering little enticement to progress. Whether formal or informal, people need to be able to advance within a proper career gradient and pay scale. As teachers demonstrate progress, they can then be given additional responsibility. At the moment, anyone trying hard within the system is stifled. In many education systems, a head teacher would likely explain poor performance by saying: “I cannot hire teachers, fire or discipline them. I don’t have a proper budget, and my resources are mediocre. How can I enhance the performance of my school if I can’t control any of those things?”

The reason people ignore performance is that it’s politically hard. If you plot a graph with technically hard to technically simple down one axis and politically hard to politically simple down the other, then you’ll find lots of programmes that are technically hard and politically easy. For example, a complex teacher training programme is satisfying for pedagogists, creates quick and measurable benefits, and threatens nobody’s political interests in the host nation. But something technically simpler, such as changing systems of accountability or incentives within career structures, is politically hard and so does not get addressed by programmes.

As soon as we suggest a rewrite of the teacher training curriculum or restructuring the way teachers are promoted and paid, it becomes contentious. Especially as it’s coming from outsiders. The minister knows he or she will immediately be faced by the unions, and other vested interests, which are resistant to change.

Grasp the nettle

If you’re a teacher working in a culture where there’s little responsibility, you’re not held to account, and where performance isn’t properly managed – then change feels threatening. Are they going to sack me? But it’s not about that. It’s about enabling high-performing people gain positions of responsibility and accountability. If we just do the politically easy stuff, then we’ll never find sustainable answers. A performance-focused path is full of potholes, but it is too important not to try. We must keep finding new ways to influence and shape policy. Revolution is unlikely, but gradual evolution can and does work. How do we build aspects of performance management into the existing pay scales? Once this is working well, how do we incentivise teachers a little more as they move up ladder?

We need to create the willingness for change by using evidence to demonstrate the need for change. This will make the politically difficult issues more palatable and so embolden political will. To date, nobody has a very strong track record in doing this. No government has yet restructured an education system to make it more performance-based.

The incentive to be the first is clear.