A UK teacher was recently awarded compensation for age-related discrimination in her dismissal. This seems like the right outcome, but as always, things are more complicated.
The facts of the case seem quite simple according to the news report. A senior teacher with years of satisfactory service was suddenly required gain a qualification which would take most of the years until her retirement. She refused and so was released, and the judge held this to be age-related discrimination.
Was it?
The school had every right to require its staff to update themselves, re-train, re-qualify and so on. The court's reported ruling suggests this is improper for older teachers. Where is the cut-off? 55? 50? The judge appears to have left this hanging.
Was this particular requirement reasonable? The school, after years of apparent content, suddenly required this teacher to have a degree. Updating in terms of the rules of football, sun safety or child protection all seem appropriate, but how would gaining a degree improve this teacher's performance after years of reportedly being satisfactory without one?
I can understand the school's wanting to be able to claim that all its staff have degrees, all have certification, and all know which fork to use. However this had not previously the case, and so presumably this degree-holding mandate is a change in policy. Any new direction requires a period of adjustment and it appears that this was not the case here. The prinicipal appears to have decided on an overnight change so of course the question arises as to whether any other teachers were similarly un-degreed.
What is also missing is whether there was any compromise offered, for example the terminated teacher could take one or two classes a year this allowing both her and the school to claim that she was "studying towards a degree".
Nonetheless, and notwithstanding any of the above, the decision to dismiss does seem targeted towards this teacher and that the qualification gap was a smokescreen. Perhaps this teacher confused her cones with her pucks. Perhaps she took the yogurt from the faculty fridge. Perhaps she parked in the principal's space.
What caught my attention and what, if true, is indefensible is that the principal bowed to pressure from "several" parents who complained that the teacher did not have a degree although they were happy, even complimetntary, about her teaching.
This is bad principalship and in my view, the principal should be the one with the pink slip. No competent teacher with a history in the school of documented satisfactory performance should be at the whim of a parental popularity poll. This principal has now established a precedent. When "several" parents approach her about a teacher who wears white after Labor Day, she clearly has no choice. That teacher will be gone - unless s/he is over 60 of course.
Comments and questions below. Please leave your email address in the box to the right for new post announcements.
Further reading
No comments :
Post a Comment