I had every intention of writing about today’s teachers’ strikes and the connection between low pay, low teacher retention and poor educational outcomes. But I concluded there was little point in attempting to produce a facsimile of Martha Gill’s excellent comment piece in today’s paper.
So instead I wanted to borrow from a counterintuitive take I read many years ago, and somehow remembered until now even though I frequently forget the names of people to whom I have just been introduced.
We all know that public servants – teachers, firefighters, nurses – get paid vastly less than film stars and footballers. In 2019, the average salary for a Premier League footballer was more than £60,000 a week, according to the Global Sports Salaries Survey, a figure that is surely higher now.
Meanwhile, the average full-time salary for a secondary school teacher in 2021 was £42,358 a year, according to the government’s School Workforce in England report. This is, however you look at it, a large difference.
But the economist and professor Don Bordeaux says this is, in fact, a good thing. Now, his blog is entitled ‘Cafe Hayek’ which provides some indication of its political philosophy, but bear with me or, rather, Don, who poses the question:
“Would you prefer to live in a world in which the number of people who can skillfully fight fires and teach children is large but the number of people who can skillfully play sports and act is very tiny, or in a world in which the number of people who can skillfully fight fires and teach children is very tiny but the number of people who can skillfully play sports and act is large?”
Framed in that way, the answer is obvious – the former. And luckily for us, that is our reality. Bordeaux continues:
“Precisely because saving lives and teaching children are indeed far more important on the whole than is entertainment, we are extraordinarily fortunate that the numbers of our fellow human beings who possess the skills and willingness to save lives and to teach children are much greater than are the numbers who can skillfully play sports and act.”
That is because in an alternative universe, we might inhabit a planet where there are so many Bukayo Saka’s that Sky Sports is paying YOU £90 a month to watch football – but few of us can read or write well and deaths from house fires are common.
Of course, back in the real world, there is still a market for teachers. It is not a free one – the government is the majority purchaser and as such has great power to set wages. But Britain is a free country and we cannot compel people to teach children, or work in social care, or do any other difficult, badly paid job.
And so, thought experiments aside, even if many more people can train to be a teacher than a Premier League footballer, there is still a point on the curve at which not enough are prepared to do so, or to remain in the profession, at current prices. That is a problem which can essentially only be solved by paying teachers more.
In the comment pages, Defence Editor Robert Fox warns that Nato’s alliance against Russia is starting to crack. Three years on, Ayesha Hazarika calls Brexit a tissue of lies papering over a hoax. While Charlotta Billstrom says we have to talk about Alessia Russo’s record-breaking transfer offer.
And finally, in his new column for the Standard, food and drink writer Josh Barrie rails against the cop out of boring and flavourless burrata. As a consumer of burrata, I enjoyed this.
