Paying pupils to learn

Dr Mohindra's recommendation (Social Inventions No. 25, page 10) that pupils could be paid per month for working to an adequate standard would have many advantages. It could be orchestrated so that students entering secondary school could contract to be paid by signed chits daily, weekly, monthly or by term, with highest pay for those who could wait longest. This would help train the most troublesome pupils, who need immediate gratification, to be able to work for postponed rewards. They could build up from daily chits. The chits could be cashed into bank accounts to help students develop savings know-how and habits, and help avoid misappropriations and protection rackets. For non-academic pupils, the standard could be compared for progress with their earlier assessments and continued effort.

For all pupils the standard would include no obstructive and disruptive behaviour that prevented other pupils being able to learn. This would reduce pay by £1 per bad day. This would mean that ten bad days meant no pay that month - but if the fine were less, it would be psychologically meaningless.

Advantages. Teachers' stress levels would be tremendously reduced.

The difference in educational outcomes between state and private schools would be reduced, as the major problem for state schools today is usually that curricula have to be designed to keep the rowdies quiet, and the low status of academic achievement means that bright children dare not be bright. In private schools, pupils can slack and fail themselves, but they cannot disrupt the work of others without being removed. Money status for all who worked would greatly help reduce the cultural antipathy to anyone who works. All the pupils would unite against disrupters - who would not be getting any money anyway.

Valerie Yule, 57 Waimarie Drive, Mount Waverley, Vic. Australia. 3159 (tel 03 807 4315).