You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Teachers in different countries get different payments and many people say that teachers should be paid according to how much their students learn.
Give specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1:
The education sector in a country is quite important and different policies are taken by the authority to enhance the quality of education. One such policy suggested by some is that teachers’ payment should be based on the scale of students’ learning. This might sound an alluring idea, but I personally disagree with it.
To begin with, theoretically, the policy of paying a teacher based on how much his students actually learn is quite a good one. But the practical aspect is quite different as it is almost impossible to accurately judge the level of students learning curve taught by a teacher. For instance, some students perform quite brilliantly in a class while others even fail to grasp the basic concepts. This can be seen even in a single classroom where the same teachers are teaching those students. Moreover, this policy would create an outburst and dissatisfaction among the teachers and would actually decline their motivation. Not to mention, this would actually decline the education and teaching quality which is not at all desirable.
Another key thing to remember is that teaching profession is already failing to attract talented individuals as they opt to more attractive salary offered by other professions. If payment based on students learning curve is considered, it would make it an even less attractive profession. On contrary to this policy, more training, motivations, monitoring teaching styles of teachers and then counselling, student feedback on teachers could be better alternatives.
To conclude, teachers’ role, in a country, is very important and no policy that might be detrimental for their motivation or for the educational setup should be launched. Alternative ways like training teachers, better study environment, students’ feedback etc. for ensuring quality education and motivating teachers should be in place.
(Approximately293words)
Sample Answer 2:
Education is perhaps the most important aspect of a nation’s development and teachers play a crucial role in ensuring the quality education in a school. I have to disagree with the statement that teachers should be paid according to how much their students learn. In the following paragraphs, I will give my reasons to support my opinion.
First of all, students in a class are different and they do not have the similar ability to learn and understand the given lectures. Some students have to spend many hours studying a subject while others can do that quickly. Second, students have different goals in attending schools. Some students want to gain more knowledge and experience that will help them in the future to succeed and make a great career. Others are forced to go to a school by their parents, so, basically, they do not care about their grades and studying and this might be true due to the age they attend the schools as well.
I think that penalising or rewarding teachers depending on how much their students have learnt is not fair. However, I believe that evaluation of teachers by their students does make sense. Teachers who get high grades from their students deserve to be rewarded financially or otherwise. On the contrary, teachers who get low grades must be sanctioned by the authority and motivated in other ways to do even better. This will force teachers to constantly improve their knowledge to get a higher salary and simultaneously will improve the learning process. Regular training for teachers is another good way to enhance their teaching skills. Students will have the opportunity to have the best teachers and get more interesting and comprehensive lectures this way.
To draw the conclusion, from my everyday experience and observation, I can say that the quality of the lectures given by the teachers often does not reflect how much a student learn or wants to learn. This is why adopting the payment policy based on student’s learning is not a good idea.
(Approximately340words)