Teacher incentives

Teacher’s salary is the amount of money a teacher is earning from the activity of teaching in a school. The average level of teacher salaries is both politically sensitive and crucially important for education results. In every ministry of education, teachers’ salaries are the most important part of the educational budget (representing around ¾). Salaries affect the attraction, retention, and motivation of good teachers. These factors must be combined and balanced in order to implement a sustainable teacher salary policy.

Promising policy options

Strategies to ensure teachers appropriate salaries

Basic salaries must be high enough to ensure teachers a decent level of living, which prevents them from having a second job to complement their salary (leads to absenteeism). Average salaries and the lifetime structure of incentives (the salary scale) must be adequate to attract individuals who meet the desired standards; this means they must be competitive with salary incentives in other sectors of the economy that need to be educated, talented people. A quality teacher training may also be considered to ensure a talented and valuable workforce (more practicing, use of ICT, alternative learning modalities).

To get an idea of the appropriateness of the level of salary of the employed teachers, the comparative perspective constitutes a relevant approach. At the international level, using measures of the average teacher remuneration in per capita GDP terms in a set of countries. Factual documentation can be provided with control for the level of per capita GDP (to account for the fact that teacher remuneration both tends to increase in absolute terms but to decline in relative terms –PCGDP– with the level of economic development) and to identify appropriate country-specific benchmarks.

At the national level, comparing the level of remuneration of the teacher with that of individuals with similar credentials working in another occupation in the public and private sector. The comparison with the remuneration of teachers in private schools may also be considered.

Teacher benefits to motivate them and retain them in the sector

One strategy to motivate and retain teachers in the sector is to have policies of career evolution such as having the possibility of being promoted with a higher salary as a classroom teacher or having more responsibilities either as an expert or mentor teacher or by taking on management positions within the school.

As for professional development benefits such as in-service training, study leave, and scholarships for gifted students to become teachers for a certain amount of years exist. Teacher networks can also be an accurate solution that enables teachers to meet, work and train themselves together, on new teaching practices. 

Regarding professional conditions of teaching one strategy is to collaborate with colleagues and with the community to work in a supportive environment.

Finally, it is useful to have comprehensive teacher policies, such as monetary and non-monetary payments to recruit and deploy teachers in more difficult areas (remote, conflict-affected areas). Financial incentives, such as bonuses or allowances for the teachers who work in difficult areas, and non-financial incentives, such as transportation, housing, pension, study leave priority, are potential policies.

Other policy options

Contract teachers

Contract teachers are non-regular teachers on often short contracts and that hasn’t gone through the regular process to become official teachers. These positions are usually not recognised as public servants and are on occasion outside of the teacher regulations, often as a way to increase rapidly the number of teachers in a short amount of time, with their number increasing due to the promotion of larger education access with EFA goals. This kind of contract is generally flexible and can be useful for different reasons:

• in remote areas, since there are fewer regular teachers in function there;
• in ethnic minorities’ areas where regular teachers may not speak the language or may not want to work in; and
• where the teacher/pupils ratio is very high, they can complete the teaching teams and assist teachers in function.

However, these teachers tend to receive lower salaries (they don’t receive allowances nor access to pension and social security), can suffer from high turnover and have fewer qualifications and training. Besides, it can lead to tensions with regular teachers –civil servants–  and affect the quality of education, as much as the respect given to the teaching profession.

Other types of teachers

This includes different types of teachers such as community members and volunteers. Volunteers are not paid, whereas community members who teach in classrooms are paid by the community, especially by parents, with the community teachers being less paid and also less qualified than regular teachers. The use of their service questions the equality within the educational system since they are not supported by the State although they tend to serve the most disadvantaged populations.

Performance- or merit-based salaries

In some countries, governments have developed merit-based salaries in order to increase the teaching profession’s attractiveness, paying teachers according to their quality of teaching or their academic qualifications, with higher salaries encouraging teachers to improve their way of teaching. However, this correlation between salary and quality of instruction reaches a “glass ceiling” when pupils’ performance does not increase according to the salary given to teachers. Consequently, performance-based salary may not be efficient to improve structurally students’ learning but can be useful in extreme cases in order to motivate and retain teachers.

Bonuses based on students’ results is a very controversial measure inasmuch as it can affect negatively quality education since it tends to encourage teachers to teach for the national examinations and focus on specific subjects directly linked to the tests. These bonuses can encourage teachers first to concentrate their teaching on short-term results rather than on structural educational values, and second to develop cheatings and individualistic relationships between teachers.

Policy options for improving Equity and Inclusion

Gender-responsive policies

Promising policy options

Uphold the principle of equal remuneration in schools

Ministries of Education must commit to the principle of equal remuneration and ensure that public and private schools uphold this principle as well:

• Ministries of Education should commit explicitly to the principle of equal remuneration through teacher’s salary policy (public servants in public schools). Outlaw unjust benefits based solely on gender, such as in Palestine, where only male teachers and staff members are eligible, by law, to receive monthly family allowances (ILO, 2016);
• Ministries of Education should ensure that their teacher career model –within which teacher’s salary policy is inscribed– is gender-responsive, by fulfilling two basic criteria when defining, reviewing or reforming it (GPE and UNGEI, 2017). Acknowledge gender roles, norms, and relations throughout the decision-making process, and include specific policies to actively reduce the harmful effects of those gender roles, norms and relations throughout teacher careers; and
• Ministries of Education should ensure that this principle is respected in private schools as well. For instance, by developing new standards for licensing and regulation that oblige private schools to commit to the principle of equal pay (ILO, 2016).

Promote awareness-raising campaigns on teachers’ right to equal remuneration

Alert and inform teachers about the existence of gender pay gaps within the education sector, which will, in turn, make teachers aware of their right to equal remuneration and gain their support to tackle the issue down. Further, uncover underlying gender inequalities and stereotypes within the teaching profession and develop policies to eliminate them.

Tackle down gender pay gaps in teacher salary through inspection and monitoring systems

Schools (public and private) should collect, analyse, report and respond to gender pay gaps in teacher salary. Collect sex-disaggregated data concerning the teachers’ salaries, bonuses, promotions, and other non-pay benefits. Compel schools to analyse and publish their gender pay gap, particularly their mean and median gender pay gap, and gender bonus gap and have them explain the results. For example, since 2017 schools in Wales and England with more than 250 employees are legally obliged to publish their gender pay gap (NASUWT, 2017; NASUWT CYMRU, 2017).

Commit explicitly towards tackling the issue down through a clear action plan, developing context-based enforcement measures to ensure schools are respecting their action plan, making sure teachers are involved in the decision-making process or at least be consulted before the action plan is established (NASUWT, 2017; NASUWT CYMRU, 2017).

Work with the Ministry of Labour to ensure access to efficient and independent dispute settlements and compensation mechanisms for teachers –and contract teachers– who have been affected by gender pay gaps (ILO, 2016) and hold schools accountable for persisting gender pay gaps.

Take into account entrenched gender issues in salary progression and promotion

It is of utmost importance to analyse and tackle gender issues underlying salary progression and promotion to address teachers’ gender pay gap. Ministries of Education must ensure fair access to pay progression and promotion by analysing teachers’ gender pay gap due to unequal promotions through sex-disaggregated data.

Tackle down any gender bias and discrimination impeding teachers’ promotion such as maternity leaves used as an excuse to refuse promotion which was an issue encountered in schools in the United Kingdom (Jeffreys, 2018).) 

Ensure gender-sensitive training to staff in charge of recruitment and promotions, with Ministries of Education mainstreaming gender throughout policies concerning salary progression and promotion. In the traditional single salary schedule model, promotions –and thus salary increases– are based on seniority and certifications (Tournier, 2018), while in second-generation teacher careers (such as the career ladder), promotions are based on meritocracy (Tournier, 2018).

Policies for teachers with disabilities

All of the policies and strategies previously recommended apply for this category.

In inclusive settings, Ministries of Education should work to ensure that all teachers are paid adequate salaries, which includes allotting adequate teacher salaries to teachers with disabilities and special educators to motivate them to enter the profession and remain in it. Fair access to pay progression and promotion –especially concerning teachers with disabilities– is an essential aspect as well (for instance, tackle down barriers impeding teachers with disabilities of being promoted).  

*Note: Due to a consistent lack of research concerning teachers with disabilities’ pay and promotions, the present section remains general and stresses the need for more research and evidence about pertinent policy options in this area.

Policies for displaced populations and host communities

Contents under review

Policies for minority populations

Contents under review