How much would you have to be paid to teach these oiks?

Michael Gove, Shadow Schools Secretary, has announced a quite simple new policy to entice more science graduates into teaching science – graduates get their student loan paid off, if they go into teaching.

It’s a good policy insofar that it gets lots and lots and lots of headlines. The downside is, it won’t make much difference. Gove claims that the scheme could potentially save graduates ‘£40,000 over a lifetime’.

‘Over a lifetime’, that is not a lot of money. A grand a year over a forty year career? Will that replace the hole in a science graduate’s earnings caused by turning down Glaxo for a teaching job? I doubt it. In real terms, Gove is offering a 3% pay increase to science graduates – up until their student loan is paid off. When that debt has gone, there is no incentive.

It’s better than nothing, but why would high-achieving graduates want to embark on a really stressful career for the sake of a barely improved salary?

Gove claims that the scheme will help create “generation of teachers who have made a commitment to the long-term, and thus we will diminish the churn that characterises our system now.”

How is a short term pay increase going to ‘diminish the churn’? To be a good teacher, you have to love your job. And I mean really love it. Extra pay might cushion job dissatisfaction, but not forever – and certainly not if the extra pay dries up in a few years.

Teaching is difficult and not particularly well paid. Why would someone with a first in Chemistry go and teach at a crappy comp if Deloitte have offered them a £25,000 starting salary for a piss easy consulting job?

Gove has got the right idea: you want better teachers, give them a better pay deal. But he needs to go much further.

Related posts:

1. Why shouldn’t medics and engineers pay higher fees?
2. Cut, cut, cut! Teaching jobs go at Sheffield University