Paying kids to learn? - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Paying kids to learn?

Few people would disagree with the idea of investigating ways to improve student motivation. But the suggestion that we should pay kids to go to school is a large leap away from sensible policy.

Economics Professor Richard Holden is certainly right to describe the notion of his research showing that financial incentives improve student performance as ‘unorthodox and controversial’.

However, it raises serious educational concerns; and hopefully is a long way from the possibility of consideration — let alone trial implementation.

Perhaps the most alarming finding of the research relates to the varied long-term impacts of financial incentives on students. Higher ability students perform better with incentives and for longer than low ability students; with the former continuing to do well one year after the incentives were removed, while large and significant decreases in achievement were noted for lower ability students.

Arguably, programs that result in such inequitable, unsustainable outcomes should deservedly struggle to attract government attention and funding — given the broader economic context of limited resources, competing sectoral demands and school systems faced with a multitude of changing priorities and needs.

Perhaps the greatest concern is the failure of such schemes to recognize and build on all the educational goodness that has gone before: the research evidence that leads to the introduction of quality teaching, professional standards, and national curriculum and assessments aimed at delivering improvements in student learning.

At the school level, the primary focus in classrooms is learning. Teachers are expected to model and reinforce behavior; including integrity, excellence, respect, responsibility, cooperation and participation. There is a strong connection between these core values and the achievement of broad educational goals: a love of learning, high standards, respect for work, pursuit of excellence, care and respect for self and others.

The idea to inject financial incentives into these caring student-centric environments, in an attempt to boost motivation, contradicts their very nature.

Holden is right in recognising that “most people want Australia to have great schools and provide educational opportunities for all our children.” However, future innovation in the student-motivation space should recognise and build on existing effective evidence-based practices already successfully implemented in many schools across a range of socio-economic contexts.

Financial incentives designed to increase motivation would be best reserved for home life, where caring parents challenge and reward their children for achieving personal goals and contributing to the daily functions and activities of the home.

Kerrie Wratten is a retired secondary principal and PhD student at Macquarie University.