Vasagar, J. The Guardian (30 May 2012)
The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) has announced that teachers could have their salary frozen after school inspections under new measures aimed at linking teacher salary to classroom performance. According to Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, Ofsted will “consider whether there is a correlation between the quality of teaching and salary progression.” Inspectors will look at anonymized data to ensure that school heads are using performance pay to increase standards. Some government officials have called for such reforms to discourage weak teachers from staying in the field. But, Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, believes the measure would be detrimental to the teaching profession: “Performance management is supposed to be about encouraging teachers in developing their skills, not about judging pay or comparing pupil results…Teaching is a collegiate profession and this is a divisive, unrealistic and simplistic way of looking at how schools work.”
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