Page 4022 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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this report makes recommendations on possible merit-based pay models for the teaching profession. It proposes a range of reforms to remuneration and career structures that keep great teachers in the classroom.
Specifically, the report considers analogous collaborative professions that use merit-based pay models, such as the public service, health professions and the armed services. The Gerard Daniels report also reviewed existing merit pay models for the teaching profession in Scotland, England, Denver and Western Australia. The report concluded that there is an appetite for improved rewards for high performing teachers.
This is an important step forward for teacher quality. The development of a merit-based pay model should be very closely linked to a sophisticated approach to national teaching standards. We intend to work closely with the commonwealth and states and territories in developing these national teaching standards. A merit-based pay model for the teaching profession should focus on recruiting, retaining and rewarding high performing teachers in classrooms.
At this point, it is worth noting that this approach to a merit-based pay system is where there is a massive deviation in federal government policy from what was the case under the previous government. They were more interested in merit-based pay systems based on votes of students and parents, based on taking money away from other members of staff to reward teachers, based on that sort of merit-based system.
There is very little research or any actual evidence base behind the particular proposals that the previous federal Liberal government put forward in this area. That is why not just the ACT but all states and territories rejected the previous approach to merit-based pay. This is not to say that the issue itself does not have the capacity to generate some more innovative responses from jurisdictions. This is what the commonwealth and the states and territories are engaged in at this point in time.
I return to where I began. Our best classroom teachers should be paid six-figure salaries—top salaries for our top classroom teachers. This is not some pie in the sky number; it is a practical target that the government is working towards. The enterprise bargaining agreement that teachers will soon be voting on will outline the process towards moving to this particular goal. Teachers vote on that in the next few weeks. The AEU will be recommending support for such an agreement.
In closing, I again reiterate the government’s view that education is a powerful force for change in our society. It obliterates old class divisions and boundaries. It is the great equaliser and a great driver of excellence and achievement. It prepares children, not just for tests and exams, but for lifelong learning. As Ms Burch says in her motion, outside the home, teacher quality is the most important factor in a child’s education. It is teacher quality that inspires and it is teacher quality that gets results.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.56): There is no doubt that much of what Ms Burch says in her motion has a ring of truth to it. Teacher quality is an important element in the range of things that will assure good educational outcomes for students. But it is interesting that from time to time educational researchers hang their hat on one item or another. I recall that at the time when national testing was first mooted and when
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