This year, for the first time, a brand-new metric was introduced to the lexicon of evaluating universities, and more importantly business schools: teaching power., an American non-profit, to track the frequency and amount of work done by professors and their business schools which appears in course descriptions and reading lists assigned to students, rather than the traditional measurement of researchers being cited in academic papers.
But the most important thing that they do is hopefully force a rethink on education. We spend an incredible amount on education in this country despite the belief to the contrary, but it’s not working. And then there are the vacancies that we aren’t training for: 30,000 nurses, 10,000 pharmacy assistants and 40,000 teachers. That’s not forgetting the fact that in an increasingly digitised world, we have only managed to produce 17,000 graduates in the past 10 years for the 70,000 positions that exist.
Imagine how we could start to change the entire system if we could start measuring the output of our teachers and recalibrating the relevance of what is being taught? Teachers matter — many people can remember that one great teacher who changed their lives. It’s time to refocus education into creating legions of great teachers to change legions of lives. And pay them more: “What do teachers make?” Well, not that much money, but they do make a huge difference. It’s time we rewarded that difference.