Another article from the Wall Street Journal, arguing for performance-based pay in India's schools. As always, will be eager to hear your thoughts and comments, either on this blog or on the WSJ webpage (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/04/07/sticks-and-carrots-for-teachers/)
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It was no secret, in the high school I attended not too long ago, that our Physics teacher was not very good at what he did. Students tended to miraculously get stomach aches and ailments that saved them from being in his class and even the mightiest were left in shambles after he went through the concept of gravity.
Despite our inability to understand him, however, we did not dare to provide the school authorities with any feedback on his lackluster performance. The consequences for whistle-blowers, if identified by the teacher, were known to be low grades or, even worse, extra classes in Physics. When the year-end exams rolled around, students like me pulled all-nighters cramming their text-books, paid for private tuition or sought the help of seniors who had also faced a similar dilemma. By hook and by crook, the Physics exam was thus cleared, students breathed a sigh of relief, parents smiled and shook hands with teachers and, in an instant, the suffering of one batch of students was bestowed to another.
My friends and I often wondered how it would be possible for teaching to be more student-centric and less focused on year-end results, how schools could foster a culture of innovation instead of mundane rote-learning, how smarter teachers could be brought into classrooms and how educators could be made more accountable for what they taught to students.
Today, after having spent a few years working in the financial services sector and with the memory of my Physics teacher fresh in my mind, I look to the age-old business concept of performance-based compensation and employee feedback in solving many of these challenges. I believe that this principle, which forms the bedrock of corporate governance around the world, can instill our system of education with a new sense of life and purpose.
As an employee at a large investment bank in the U.S., I drew a portion of my compensation through a fixed salary and another significant portion through a performance-based bonus. At the end of every three months, my manager would discuss my performance at the firm over a cup of coffee and highlight the things I was doing right and the things I needed to do better.
Similarly, I would point out what I had learned at the firm, what challenges I had faced and what I would concentrate on over the next three months. This casual but mandatory exercise was played out across the firm, from the most senior executives to the newly hired office assistant. Employees were asked to write feedback on each other, to discuss ideas in groups and to think of doing old things in a new way. As you may have guessed, how well employees fared in each of these areas decided what their performance-based bonus would be at the firm.
As soon as I joined the firm, I noticed a way of doing things that I knew instantly would have worked wonders at the high school I attended. Because employees were judged by their peers and seniors on concrete results instead of on mere ideas, there was a sense of energy and enthusiasm among people to make their work very specific to individual needs. Instead of a sense of competitiveness, a culture of meritocracy ran through the firm and it was not age or rank but quality of work which decided pay. Finally, because higher salaries were on offer for high performers, the firm automatically attracted the best talent and kept out those offering mediocre work and demanding stable salaries.
Such a system of performance-based compensation and teacher feedback makes logical sense to implement in India for a few reasons.
For starters, there are few performance metrics in place today, both in government and private schools, to grade and evaluate school teachers. Most times, the measure of a teacher is by the final results of students, like it was for my Physics teacher. How well a lesson is understood and appreciated by students, how the teacher manages to introduce a spirit of innovation into an otherwise complex topic and how the teacher responds to student-specific concerns are questions that are seldom asked, let alone answered. Thus, instead of someone who fine-tunes his teaching style to better mold his students, a teacher often resembles a worker in an assembly line who jams new data into students’ minds and bids them farewell.
A well-implemented feedback and compensation system, where teachers are critically evaluated by parents, peers and school leaders, would help in making teaching more student-centric and less mechanical. This will benefit not just students, who will suddenly find their classes more interesting and relevant, but also teachers, who will be able to communicate and interact with students more effectively.
Next, our schools desperately long for a culture of meritocracy, where it is not the age of a teacher or the years of employment with a school which determine seniority or pay; but rather, factors like quality of teaching, attendance record, leadership skills and adaptability. A setting where high-performers are paid higher salaries not only sets the tone for teachers to over-perform everyday but also emphasizes a school’s commitment towards rewarding such performance. Like it was at my old job, such a setting also attracts talented and motivated employees, who promise better work for better pay.
In an age where consumers can provide instantaneous feedback on the taste of their toothpaste or the service staff of their local bank, it seems odd that a factor as crucial as the quality of education is left in the vacuum. By mandating performance reviews and teacher feedback, a system of performance-based compensation opens a principal’s doors to hapless students or parents and allows any shortcomings to be addressed promptly and effectively. Providing feedback on teachers or on classes is then not seen as a crime, as it was for my Physics teacher, but encouraged as the right of every student, parent and teacher.
Finally, a well-implemented system of sticks and carrots sets up measures of accountability and transparency in educational institutes, something that is largely lacking at present. When school leaders are obliged to pay bonuses to teachers, there is a natural tendency for them to set up performance appraisals, document teacher track records and deeply scrutinize learning methods. For instance, a school director who is deciding on what bonus to pay his math teacher would like to analyze the teacher’s past performance and look out for any improvements or deterioration in quality of work. This, in turn, would help the director get a keener sense for how the school is doing at the most intricate levels and how students’ learning experiences can further be enhanced.
From my personal experiences so far, I have seen many schools deploy a performance-based compensation system for their top leadership (principals, administrators, managers) but conveniently leave teachers and support staff out of the party. While this half-hearted measure may boost macro-level statistics like number of admissions, year-end results or general discipline, it can never have the same effect that all-staff bonuses can on boosting teaching quality, instilling a culture of meritocracy, opening communication channels with parents and enhancing accountability standards.
Eventually, schools must recognize that even those teaching should be open to learning. Either by stick or by carrot.
