The promise and the practicalities
Immanuel spent 20 years working as an underwriter for a market leader in insurance. His degree was in accountancy, but a year of teacher training has led to his appointment as a Primary 3 teacher in a rural setting. He struggles to cope with the perpetual motion of his charges and is overwhelmed by the limitless demand of the curriculum he is expected to deliver. Already he finds himself flicking ruefully through the appointments pages of his Sunday paper.
The essential difference between the two in the classroom is that Jemima Can and Immanuel Can’t. However, Immanuel has been given credit for his years of employment and earns several thousand pounds more than his younger counterpart.
Attempts to rectify this longstanding anomaly over pay and experience have provoked outrage from those who have been attracted to the profession by assurances that they will immediately leap-frog younger graduates. Their resentment is understandable if they have given up well-paid positions on the strength of a verbal or written guarantee of enhanced grading. This year’s mature graduates should be offered some transitional payment to compensate them for the injustice over pay that they have suffered.
Thereafter, the principle of equal pay for equal work should be applied rigorously.
The commitment to offer every emerging new teacher a training place within the induction arrangements seems to be in jeopardy. Directors of education and unions have joined forces to cry foul at the Scottish Executive’s refusal to budge on the total funding allocated to support the scheme. Edinburgh, like other authorities, is pulling out all stops to accommodate the new arrivals. Advertising of permanent posts has been suspended to ensure that every suitable vacancy is earmarked for the induction scheme.
At Holy Rood High, we anticipate vacancies in modern languages, drama, mathematics, craft and design and chemistry, and this is only May. Each of these full time posts will require either two trainees, which will amount to a multitude of probationers, or one probationer and a temporary part-time teacher, which will be messy and could have consequences for the continuity of teaching.
The objectives of the scheme are admirable and should eliminate the unsatisfactory treatment of some probationers, who found themselves shunted around a dozen or more schools in their first two years. However, to expect authorities to accommodate additional trainees in areas where they have no vacancies without additional funding risks undermining their commitment to the exercise.
The silent casualties of the project are this year’s probationers who find themselves replaced at the head of the queue for posts, and serving temporary teachers, whose prospects of securing a permanent position have receded as the scheme has been unveiled. Some of the latter have been in temporary posts for years, particularly in subjects where there has been a surplus. Each successive summer will produce a new crop of emerging graduates, who will have priority for appointments over them.
There is a distinct danger that disillusioned temporary teachers will seek other pastures, depriving the profession of experienced quality staff. We need to find creative ways of retaining these valued colleagues while offering a secure launching pad to the pioneers of the brave new world of teacher induction.
Pat Sweeney is headteacher at Holy Rood High School, Edinburgh