The president of the Ulster Teachers' Union (UTU) has rejected the introduction of performance-related pay for teachers in Northern Ireland. In an interview with The Irish Times at the UTU's annual conference in Newcastle, Co Down, yesterday, Mr Alistair Orr said the union was totally against pay based on pupils' results.
"How can pupils' results determine a teacher's pay, if you have two schools in two different areas with different children and different attitudes of parents?" said Mr Orr, principal of Edwards primary school in Castlederg, Co Tyrone. While attempts were being made in England to introduce performance-related pay, there had so far been no such moves in Northern Ireland, he added.
Mr Orr affirmed, however, that he was not hostile to the idea introduced by the conference's guest speaker, Mr Herbert Faulkner, the chairman of the Western Education and Library Board, that "those teachers who go the extra mile should be rewarded as such".
"To give something more to someone who is putting more in, that may be acceptable in the future," Mr Orr said.
In his keynote address, Mr Faulkner told more than 100 delegates that the introduction of performance-related pay was a question of "when" rather than "if". He strongly advised members to "get on board" and have a constructive input rather than resist changes to the pay structure.
The dwindling number of graduates opting to become teachers was also discussed. Referring to a recent survey conducted in Britain, Mr Orr said the main reasons stopping young people from joining the teaching profession were low pay, work-related stress and lack of respect.
"While we perhaps do not see this trend in Northern Ireland in the admission numbers to our training institutions we cannot be complacent," he added.
The UTU president said he was particularly concerned about the lack of young men coming into the profession, both in primary and in secondary education. The reasons for that, according to Mr Orr, were the high grades required to enter the North's teacher training colleges, as well as low salaries. "A graduate teacher starting on a professional career will earn 12 per cent less than the average graduate leaving university. The British government has told us its priority is `education, education, education.' We need a substantial increase in salary fully funded by the government to show its commitment to its promises and a substantial increase in school budgets to take away the uncertainty of redundancies," Mr Orr added.
He said his 6,000-strong union was pinning great hopes on the North's new Assembly.