24 September 2004
A new tier of 'super-teachers' benefiting from financial incentives and specialist training should be created to teach at the most challenging schools, according to an influential committee of MPs.
The Commons' education and skills select committee wants greater flexibility in teachers' pay and conditions, as a means of tackling persistent problems with recruitment and retention in inner-city schools.
MPs did not find evidence of a general problem with attracting and keeping teaching staff, but they concluded that there were 'specific problems' that pose 'very real difficulties' for particular schools.
Teaching unions fiercely oppose any extension of flexible pay, which already exists in limited form, for example with 'golden hellos' available to newly qualified staff whose subjects have a shortage of teachers.
The committee's report, published on September 21, says schools with a high staff turnover often contend with challenging circumstances and should have more room for manoeuvre.
'Where there are persistent problems of recruitment, it is surely right, in the interests of children's education, that financial incentives are available to attract teachers,' the report says. 'They have worked well in encouraging more people to train as secondary teachers, and could make a significant difference.'
MPs say ministers should follow the example of Center X, a Californian project that runs training programmes for teachers who have agreed to work in tough inner-city schools.
But Chris Keates, acting general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/ Union of Women Teachers, criticised the committee's 'depressing and unimaginative' conclusions.
'Pay flexibility encourages schools to poach staff and leads to schools in difficult circumstances or with budgetary problems being disadvantaged still further,' she said.
The National Union of Teachers spelt out its opposition to flexible pay in its submission to the School Teachers' Review Body. 'The proposal would not solve the problems of recruitment and retention, but would shift them from one area to another or from one school to another,' general secretary Steve Sinnott said.
But schools minister David Miliband said schools could already exercise discretion over pay. 'Schools can be flexible in the pay decisions they make by giving teachers recruitment and retention incentives [and] benefits to meet local needs and circumstances.'
Miliband has also launched a consultation on reforming the teachers' pension scheme to make it more flexible.
It proposes allowing recipients to draw some pension while still working part-time, and offers higher lump sum payments on retirement in exchange for smaller pensions.
PFsep2004
