Inequality tsar calls for best teachers to be paid more to teach in failing schools
Social mobility across England and Wales must be promoted by paying the better teachers around the nation to work in failing schools, which will improve the poor quality of education that has been the biggest barrier to mobility, an expert has claimed.
Alan Milburn, the chairman of the social mobility commission and David Cameron's inequality tsar, said the biggest thing the government could do to deal with inequality was improve teaching in areas of England and Wales, where it has previously been below par.
He said good teachers at the start of their career must be paid more than the current entry level salary of about £22,000 a year, to incentivise them to move to coastal and northern areas where more high quality teachers are needed, as well as giving qualified teachers higher wages and bonuses to make the moves to these schools.
“I’m fed up with state schools in disadvantaged areas letting down the poorest pupils,” he said.
“I’m fed up with it in my area in the north-east, I’m fed up with it in Derby and Hull and towns and cities across the country. I’ve seen regimes come and go and none make a blind difference. It is intolerable and we keep making the same mistakes year after year after year. So let’s cut to the chase.
“If you’re asking me what is the one thing that would make the single biggest difference, we know that it’s the quality of teaching. It is by far the biggest thing. We know from other studies the difference between good quality teaching and less good teaching is one year of learning for a poor child. We have got to find a way to encourage good teachers into the worst schools.”
Mr Milburn also went on to say that the government should be adopting a zero tolerance approach when it comes to dealing with schools that are failing.
It was recently believed that the government wanted all the schools that were failing Ofsted inspections to become academies, and although the House of Lords moved to block this, Mr Milburn said it is one of the only ways to ensure success in schools where standards have slipped significantly.
