People in teaching jobs could earn up to £70,000 a year.

This is the claim of a think tank that has been accessing a new performance related pay scheme.

Policy Exchange states that in order for the new remuneration structure to be fair and reward excellence in the classroom, there must be real incentives and this includes paying top teachers £70,000 - significantly more than is available currently - after around five years.

The think tank does note that pay is not the primary motivation of many teachers, but it wants those who do perform well to be rewarded and financial awards should be focused on base salary rises, rather than via a bonus structure.

Policy Exchange's paper stressed that performance related pay needs to be implemented as an incentive and not viewed as another cost-cutting exercise. Currently, people with qualified teacher status earn a minimum of £21,804, or £27,270 if they have a London teaching job, while senior teachers have a salary of up to £57,520, or £64,677 in the capital, so a £70,000 could be a significant incentive.

Jonathan Simons, head of education at The Policy Exchange, stated that teaching jobs are some of the most important in the country.

He said: "For too long we have been running systems that seem to suggest exactly the opposite - treating teachers the same in how we recruit, train, develop, appraise and pay them, regardless of their performance.

"We want to treat teachers like professionals. And we want schools to have the flexibility to reward and retain their best teachers and to use them to improve outcomes for young people."

Despite strong opposition for teachers’ unions, the think tank believes the vast majority of teachers do welcome performance related pay and the idea of earning more than 2.5 times the national average wage within five to eight years.

Is this feasible? Let us know your views.