Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most co

Academic performance of students signifies the characteristics of an institution and as research on education barrier, conducted in 2012 covered major institutions of USA, concluded that institutes that are ranked above others charge higher fees, corollary is that academic performance should also be consider for devising the financial compensation of teachers. It is important for the society to benchmark the outcome of students’ achievements for determining the salary structure of teachers as it is followed in other professions: Marketing and Sales, in order to bring result based management system. While, there are very few reservations concerning the academic achievements of students should be reflected in their teachers’ salaries, there are reasons to believe that it may not lead to desired results in all situations. Since teaching is considered a sacred profession because it involves moral and intellectual upliftment of students, therefore, its outcome should not be linked to their compensation.

However, true it may be the case that teaching is a profession that is set aside for enlightenment of students who are expected to work towards prosperity along with their inherent interests and skills, the method of linking their salaries with the students’ achievements can make this process of enlightenment more conducive. In today’s commercial environment where everything is commoditised, financial compensation holds an inherent motivation factor that drives every individual to work and achieve more. Therefore, teachers would be encouraged to devise new and innovative methods and technologies to impart necessary skills into students’ mind in order to increase their achievements. For example, the research conducted by behavioural scientists in 2016, covered professions such as medical, advocacy and teaching, concluded that professions that designed for non-commercial purposes are now moving towards commercial interests due to the change in environment. Therefore, study highlighted that compensation in these professions, especially of teachers, should be linked to the outcome, in terms of achievements of students in order to achieve higher results. Therefore, students’ achievements can persuade teachers to enhance the methods of teaching.

However, one such reason that supports the idea that academic achievement of students would work negatively towards the compensation of teachers is that it may lead to manipulation of academic results. In an environment where everything has a price, it would lead to a situation where teachers would likely to manipulate or inflate the performance of students in order to gain financially and therefore, they would focus not on students’ learning or upliftment but rather on manipulating the results either by devising very easy assessment for students or prejudiced marking of student’s papers. For example, the study conducted by the group of colleges in 2018 in India, covered both private and public institutions, has concluded that though the academic achievements of students of private institutions are higher than that of public institutions, they fared poorly while writing a common aptitude exam. The study concluded that it was the result of monetary incentives given to the teachers of private institutions that inflated their performance without any real substance. Therefore, in order to serve the students’ need, it is advisable not to link the salaries of teachers with their outcomes.

Another reason that buttresses the thought that salaries of teacher should be independent of students’ achievements is that diversity among students may lead to bias adjustment of their salaries. The students in a class are diverse in terms of their interests, skills and talents, therefore, not all of them may not be focussed towards higher academic grades. In such a situation emoluments of a teacher may be at lower side though he or she may be competent or the best teacher in the school. For example, the research conducted by Association of Schools in 2017, covered 120 schools in India to study the impact of different teaching methods on students, has concluded that schools should not be graded solely on the basis of academic achievements since people who are eminent in their respective fields were from those schools where students were graded on extra academic achievements as well. Therefore, outcome of students’ only academic achievements may not reflect the qualities of teachers.

While concluding, as it can be seen from above paragraphs, although commercial environment nudges institutions to link the financial compensation of teachers to the students’ achievement in order to urge them to employ new methods of teaching, it may likely to manipulation of academic results of students and learning of students that is focussed only on marks. Moreover, the diversity exists among students hinders the estimation of teachers’ efforts on students’ achievements. Therefore, a sacred profession of teaching should not be linked untenably to students’ marks.