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ATL comment on performance related pay
1 May 2012
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said:
"We completely disagree with the Education Select Committee's views about performance related pay; the Committee did not do its homework properly.
"All the research on performance related pay in private companies finds that it is fairly simple to relate pay to sales, but once the criteria for success are more complex it is impossible to make it work fairly, and it demotivates and demoralises staff.
"Performance related pay would be totally inappropriate in schools and colleges because there are a huge range of factors which influence how well pupils do, many of which are totally outside the control of the school or college. All the evidence shows that a pupil's family background has the biggest single influence on their success at school. And within any school or college it is impossible to work out which teachers, or other staff, have contributed most to a pupil's progress since this reflects many years of learning.
"We firmly believe that the complexity and diversity of factors influencing pupils' achievements make it far too difficult to devise a fair system of performance related pay for education staff."
Notes to editors
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The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) is an independent, registered trade union and professional association, representing approximately 160,000 teachers, headteachers, lecturers and support staff in maintained and independent nurseries, schools, sixth form, tertiary and further education colleges in the United Kingdom.
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ATL exists to help members, as their careers develop, through first rate research, advice, information and legal advice.
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ATL is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and Education International (EI). ATL is not affiliated to any political party and seeks to work constructively with all the main political parties.