Wales requires the very best teachers
WE WOULD all prefer our children to be taught physics by someone who excelled at the subject and has a passion to unlock the secrets of the universe for the next generation, rather than an individual who was a mediocre student and has stumbled in teaching.
Wales needs great teachers. Our position behind the other UK nations and a raft of international competitors in maths, science and reading is not just an academic scandal but a real economic risk.
If we lack a workforce with world-class skills in science, engineering, technology and maths, Wales will face an even greater shortage of well-paying jobs. Unless there is bold change we will continue to sit far down at the end of the UK pay scale and swathes of our population will struggle to make ends meet.
Teachers are on the frontline of the battle to ensure Wales’ future is more prosperous than its past and that our children can compete with their counterparts in London, Edinburgh, Boston, Shanghai and Mumbai.
The challenge is to attract brilliant graduates to enter the classroom when they could take up job offers to work in a range of fields in any of these global cities.
On graduation day, the world glows with opportunities for someone who has just won a first-class degree in physics. Will they pursue further research in academia, take up a lucrative post in industry or put their formidable data-processing brain-power to work in the City where the rewards can be spectacular?
Education Secretary Kirsty Williams wants such individuals to enter the teaching profession. Funding grants of £20,000 are available for people with top degrees in mathematics, physics, chemistry or Welsh.
This is not as generous as in England, where bursaries of £30,000 are on offer, but is a serious attempt to present teaching as an attractive option worthy of serious consideration.
This latter goal is an important task. A teacher’s pay will never compete with that of a top QC or surgeon and many people will be put off joining the profession because of horror stories about red tape, high stress and poor discipline.
If the Welsh Government wants the most talented people to become teachers here, it will have to do more than offer financial incentives, important though this is. Our education system must free teachers to teach, to communicate their passion for their subject with support, encouragement and freedom unavailable elsewhere.
A brilliant academic is not necessarily a great communicator, so the best possible training is required. These great graduates will have to study again – and the finest rewards ahead of them will not be monetary, but nor should they be underestimated.
The legendary American author Kurt Vonnegut is credited with describing teaching as the “noblest profession of all in a democracy”.
Teaching is so much more than a job. It is a true vocation that is not just noble but vital to Wales. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%