Government should use university tuition fees to boost teachers' salaries 25%, claims poverty commissioner
The UK government should increase wages for teachers willing to work in challenging schools by 25% using undergraduate tuition fees, according to a new proposal by social mobility and child poverty commission chair Alan Milburn.
At a policy exchange conference in London, he recommended a post-election UK government review of teaching salaries “for the best teachers to work in challenging schools in the hardest-to-recruit areas”.
“National pay bargaining has not helped to narrow the attainment gap. The old orthodoxy is not working. The current government’s laissez-faire approach of giving schools more freedom and then sitting back to see what happens is not working either,” he added.
Milburn said the goal should be to offer 2,000 qualified teachers a 25% pay rise to teach in more difficult areas. The increased pay would have to be funded by £30m injection that he claims could be found in a review of undergraduate tuition costs.
He added: “Children eligible for the pupil premium are more likely to attend schools – primary and secondary – that require improvement and less likely to attend schools that are outstanding.
“Our country suffers from a divisive postcode lottery in schooling that condemns children from disadvantaged backgrounds to be far less likely to experience an excellent education than their better-off peers.”