Performance pay for teachers: the view of the NSW Teacher Unions

Finding ways to recruit and retain quality teachers has become subject of a political and educational debate both in Australia and internationally; a debate which has, in part, focussed on the adoption of performance based pay schemes. This paper reports on research undertaken in 2008 on the approach of the NSW Teachers' Federation and the NSW/ACT Branch of the Independent Education Union to performance pay. The findings show that both unions oppose the introduction of performance pay arguing that such systems negatively affect teachers' work, that they would inappropriately individualise the employment relationship and that they rely on job standardisation and performance evaluation methods which are inconsistent with effective teaching and learning.