BBC News - Raise teacher status to improve schools, says OECD - 0 views
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Teaching must be made more attractive for the brightest students, says a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Report author Andreas Schleicher says teachers need to be given "status, pay and professional autonomy". The international report identifies the quality of teachers as the key to raising education standards. The most successful systems, such as Finland and Singapore, recruit high-achieving students, says the report.
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Mr Schleicher, the OECD's special adviser on education, argues in his report that if school systems want to be competitive they need to recruit and reward the right type of staff. He says that a modern economy needs teachers who are "high-level knowledge workers" - able to support the learning of children in a digital age.
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"But people who see themselves as knowledge workers are not attracted by schools organised like an assembly line, with teachers working as interchangeable widgets in a bureaucratic command-and-control environment," says Mr Schleicher.
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In Finland, a high social status is attached to teaching, making it very competitive, with nine out of 10 applicants for teacher training being turned away. In Singapore, teachers are drawn from the top third of students and they are paid at levels competitive with other graduate careers. Across the OECD, teachers on average are paid less well than other graduate professions - receiving about 80% of the average for workers with degrees.