I think, therefore IB

If there is one debate that overshadows every other in education, it is the question of respect for teachers. Once regarded as pillars of the community, teachers today often find themselves dismissed, distrusted, and demoralised. And let’s be honest: some of this is unfair, but some of it is self-inflicted.

Start with the basics: salaries. In real terms, teacher pay has fallen across the last two or three decades. The result? The brightest graduates and postgraduates—people who might once have seen teaching as a noble calling—simply aren’t interested in a profession that pays badly and offers little prestige. Add chronic underfunding, and you have classrooms where teachers don’t even have the materials to deliver great lessons. Whiteboards without pens, computers that don’t work, books ten years out of date—this is not how you build a high-performing system.

Meanwhile, technology companies are quietly infiltrating schools, selling flashy gadgets and software that rarely improve learning but always increase costs and workload. Teachers now spend more time wrestling with broken logins and buggy “learning platforms” than actually teaching. Far from empowering teachers, ed-tech often undermines them.

And then there is the government obsession with evidence. Teachers are now buried in paperwork, forced to churn out endless “data” to prove they are doing their jobs. It’s not about trust, it’s about surveillance. Add to that the curse of performance-related pay, which rewards teachers for lessons that “sparkle” in front of an observer but may do little to embed long-term understanding. Style over substance, performance over pedagogy.

The leadership problem is just as corrosive. Too many school management roles are being filled by people who can’t or don’t want to teach. These careerists treat classrooms as a stepping stone to an office job, where they issue diktats from on high without ever demonstrating mastery of teaching themselves. Respect cannot survive when leadership is divorced from practice.

And let’s be blunt: teachers themselves sometimes undermine their own professional standing. When staff rooms turn into political soapboxes, when activism takes priority over instruction, public trust erodes. If teachers want to be treated like professionals, they need to behave like professionals—mastering their craft, focusing on students, and leaving personal agendas at the door.

Respect for teachers has been lost through low pay, poor resources, political meddling, and self-inflicted wounds. If it is ever to be restored, both systems and individuals must change. Pay teachers properly. Fund schools adequately. Cut the gimmicks. Demand professionalism. Only then will teaching recover the authority and honour it once deserved.

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