Government should not introduce pay incentives for teachers, according to Shadow Education Minister Walton Brown.

Education Minister Grant Gibbons recently told The Royal Gazette he was considering introducing incentives for high-performing schools and teachers, but Mr Brown said in a statement yesterday such initiatives had already been abandoned in both New York and California.

“While performance bonuses may have merit in the business domain the Minister is most familiar with, much of the research on payment incentives for teachers shows it is fraught with problems, such as the fudging of student results, teachers fighting for the ‘best’ students and in some cases, outright fraud,” Mr Brown said.

“The research has shown that performance pay will not improve teaching or learning; it will not attract strong teachers; it will lead to more standardised testing and test preparation at considerable cost in time, money and learning. As a result of such problems, pay incentive programmes in New York City and California were long abandoned.

“The Progressive Labour Party is committed to teacher training, ongoing and relevant professional development, excellent leadership and adequately resourced schools as critical components in our efforts to improve student performance.”

In an interview earlier this month, Dr Gibbons noted that the Education Act 1996 calls for the Commissioner of Education to develop pay scales and an incentive plan for principles and teachers — something the minister said Government would “have a look at”.

“What you find in other countries which have really good educational systems is that they set the bar very high on recruitment,” Dr Gibbons said. “They will often have incentive pay to make sure that teaching as a profession really is treated as other professions, like lawyers or doctors, might be treated.

“I think the degree to which we can reward performance by teachers, in terms of the learning that actually goes on and the performance of their kids, is pretty important here.”

General secretary for the Bermuda Union of Teachers Mike Charles, however, said that if teachers were better paid, incentives would not be needed.

“If you pay teachers well enough you’ll get the brightest and best like you do in any other profession,” he said. “If you’re talking about getting quality teachers, that’s what you need to do.”

This evening, Dr Gibbons sought to clarify his remarks, pointing out that he hadn’t actually endorsed pay incentives — but had merely discussed the issue in response to a reporter’s questions.

“During our interview, we discussed the importance of improving the quality of teaching — an issue that was highlighted by Professor Hopkins in his 2007 Report on the Bermuda public school system,” Dr Gibbons said.

“In the interview, I indicated there are a number of tools that can be used to raise the overall quality of teaching in our school system. Tools areas such as professional development, higher standards for recruitment and raising the bar on teaching qualifications were discussed. I do find it very interesting that the Shadow Minister is firmly opposed to pay incentives when in fact it was the former Government in 2008 that inserted a specific clause [25B] in the Education Act 1996, which calls for performance recognition including the financial awards to teachers, principals and schools.”

“We are committed to improving our public schools and will continue to consult with the public, parents and key stakeholders on how we can improve education. Pay incentives and other programmes are ideas we are prepared to consider in consultation with the relevant groups.”