Teachers Before the Threshold

During the summer of 2000, the government will introduce a new system of pay and performance management for teachers. The Centre for Economic Performance is conducting a 'before-and-after' panel study of teachers and schools to ascertain its effects on motivation and performance. This paper reports preliminary findings from the first wave of the survey, before the introduction of the new system. The likely effects of the new system, on the basis of these results, are examined from the point of view of motivation and work behaviour, and potential recruitment. The danger of widespread de-motivation is a serious one, and it is essential that the new scheme be seen by teachers to operate fairly and to provide the necessary support to teachers wishing to pass the 'Threshold'. A key role is envisaged for the teachers' unions in building teachers' confidence that the scheme will be operated fairly, and this, it is argued, fits with the government's views on the benefits of labour-management partnership.