Performance-based bonus structure may affect principals'
willingness to retain poorer students
Time to relook appraisal system for
schools?
How about:
Letting students play part in ranking of teachers and
principals?
Letting ministry review assessment of D-grade teachers?
January 16, 2008
TWO reports in a row, coming just after the announcement that the
Ministry of Education (MOE) was revamping its pay system based on
performance, have set me thinking.
The New Paper 14th Jan 2008.
Has the time come for the Ministry of Education to review its
appraisal system?
First, some background on the two reports.
The Straits Times reported on Saturday that an all-girls' mission
school had advised some of its pupils to join the Institute of
Technical Education even though they had qualified to study for the
GCE O levels in Secondary 5.
As parents fumed over that advice, and the manner in which it was
done, the school defended its stance.
It seems the principal had gone into a supposedly 'weak' class and
displayed the results of the girls on a transparent slide.
Her point was that she was trying to give the girls a wake-up call
and she argued that it was a fact that a student who just scraped
through the N levels was not likely to do well in the O
levels.
The students' emotions were quite clear.
One of them was quoted as saying: 'It is very sad when your
principal doesn't have faith in you and will not give you a
chance.'
Then, yesterday, this paper ran another story of N-level students
discouraged from returning to their school for the Olevels.
In this case, the students had qualified to take the O
levels.
Their results were above average.
Yet, they were asked to seek permission from all the teachers who
had taught them to ask for a place in the school.
They were labelled 'disciplinary cases'.
Hurt and humiliated, some of them decided not to return.
F GRADE IN COMPASSION
In both instances, the schools failed in compassion, a basic virtue
in education. Held up against their actions, talk about giving
people a second chance seemed hollow, at least to the pupils and
their parents.
But the larger question is: What is driving our schools to take
such measures?
As suggested by The Straits Times, ranking and banding of schools
could be a factor.
But there is another factor that needs to be looked at
seriously.
This is the latest MOE initiative involving a performance-based
bonus structure.
With this system, will we see more of such cases?
Especially since teachers and principalsaregoing to be rewarded
financially, to a large extent, based on their students' academic
results.
Naturally, they would want only the best and brightest to stay on.
But is that fair to the clients, the students?
And that is why I say that perhaps the clients should also have a
say in the appraisal system.
One thought that keeps coming to mind is: Should these students
play a part in the banding and ranking of their teachers and
principals?
Should school superintendents interview these students and find out
about how they benefited from their teachers and schools?
The 360-degree top-down, bottom-up, peer appraisal system is
notnew.
Some private companies swear by it. So why not schools?
Why not have teachers assess their Heads of Department and their
school leaders?
Yet another idea is peer appraisal.
Teachers feel that the current system where the principal alone
decides on the quantum of money each teacher is to receive is
lop-sided.
It makes one person a bit too powerful in the school, they
say.
And there is little room for appeal.
When asked what would help, the general consensus was: The MOE's
personnel division should interview all D-graders and hear their
side of the story.
A fair request, I thought, given that there are still teachers who,
just like their students, feel that they have been unfairly dealt
with.
