Incomparible teachers
George Walden
The question is,' said a stern letter I received from an NUT official, 'whether or not you support comparibility.' Now you don't have to be a Tory MP to see that there are possibilities here. But let us keep some sense of perspective, even under such grave provocation. It would be wrong to base a general theory of cultural decline on an individual's freely expressed choice to dot his 'a's rather than his 'Vs. As modern- minded men and women, we also know about 'child-centred' techniques of educa- tion, and we can hardly expect teachers to centre on the spelling as well as on the child. Inevitably, something has to go.
Nor am I hostile to the teachers' cause in their current pay dispute, though I do dislike the concept of comparibility, on any spelling, and whether expressed in speech, sign language or cuneiform. My objection is not based on economic or political dogma, but on the neo-Confucian grounds that a teacher teaches, a nurse nurses and a policeman ... well a policeman has all manner of disagreeable duties nowadays. The point is that you don't need phoney comparisons to know that good teachers, as well as bad ones, are pretty miserably paid. (I quoted the figures to a foreign publica- tion recently, and the editor's office rang back in disbelief to check.) Like many peo- ple on both sides of the argument, I cannot imagine where our first-class science and maths teachers are going to come from at this rate in the future.
But I am still tempted to mock-up a little pasteboard theory on my NUT official's revealing mishap, not because I am a nigg- ling purist, but because it seems to sym- bolise a greater truth about British trade unionism as a whole: namely a lack of in- telligent self-interest which leaves one gasp- ing, and rather depressed. However far gone, the average tippler could still, if need arose, spell out his favourite brand of hooch, and the lover, in his ecstasy, the name of his beloved. Yet my' presumably sober NUT representative cannot pen the word he has spoken, read and chanted a hundred times, a word emblazoned on his union's escutcheon, and which is the core of his case. How wrung would your withers be by a pay claim pressed by a nurse who did not know one end of a thermometer from the other?
The moral for the NUT is that, in our present financial straits, cash can no longer be discussed irrespective of quality. If ever there was a profession which needed a 'productivity deal', it is teaching. The Government's somewhat mechanical 'mar- ket forces' approach is not enough: some things are too important to be measured by that yardstick alone, and teaching is one of them. In the longer term, there is only one way to secure greater professionalism, and the pay that comes with it, and that is through a restructuring of salaries based on quality of performance, annually calibrated.
As a somewhat old-world body, the NUT has failed to see that comparibility belongs to the past — indeed the very word is evidently in an advanced state of decom- position. The name of the new game, in examinations as in teaching, is 'standards'. Ah, says the educational establishment (or the Ed Biz in US parlance), who will decide which teacher is ripe for quicker advance- 'It's very spicy, to cover the bad taste.' Spectator 23 June 198i ment and better pay? And in examinations, how do you establish absolute criteria in subjects like history? But is all this reallYs° hard? It is not as if we were asking whether synthetical judgments a priori were theoretically possible. We just want t° know, on reasonable authority, whether ad teacher can teach (Confucius again) whether an examination result taw; anything in the wider world. Surely tiler" must be room somewhere here for a little healthy absolutism? Otherwise, as a Conn" try, we may one day find ourselves short on Einsteins, but long on relitivity [misspeltl, The philosophy of comparibility grex' even less convincing, and its contradictions more glaring, as soon as you do start 1001:t ing at cash and quality together. On - teachers are keen to level upwards. On dards, some seem just as keen to leve downwards — or simply to level for its own sake. The NUT would do well to reinenlb„fiel that when Matthew Arnold said high!' he was not talking about negotiations or the level of school ecltIL ment, but the need to 'Aim at the best tA-e, is known and thought in the world' allu;„1 'pull out a few more stops in that poWer':e but at present narrow-toned organ, t" modern Englishman'., 'What alternative do teachers have,: th,e. NUT also asked me, `to industrial aettc%) They could start by finding an alternative `1.1 that painful solecism 'industrial action', inefficient euphemism at the best of tinlet'o but really rather indecent when anPlieciiied strikes, against children. In fact, that the NUT should take the initiative, F. ,e forward their own bold and imagi0:11'0, programme for reshaping their profess° and bargain on the basis of that. Some talks about restructuring are on in the background. They need t(Lge given greater urgency, though anY would have to be pretty watertight W died any sympathy in the Treasury, and incl,fig would have to be mainly self-finarle'.01; When we are spending more fewer children than ever before, there surely be something to be saved herecatbe there, without damaging the qualieY °1 product. Could not some of the gigr be administrative overheads of the used to boost the incomes of bett` qualified teachers, for example?. will In the present climate, I suppose this. ie. be seen by the profession as a hostile art,tc Or It is not. No one who has ever live' oe taught in the heart of a decaying city ee.P4. will underestimate the demands of the` Ju,1 We should all have the teachers' interestsss, heart, not only out of charity, or wetne4, or because many of them work in a.,f, viable social circumstances, but out of sae_1,4 interest as well. Individually collectively as a country, we need professional profession. But the Mit ',If. show some scintilla of enlightened s'" interest too. Is that a lot to ask?
George Walden MP is a member OJ , and the Arts. Select Committee on Education,
as parents, oni; Sciene,
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