You’ll all be familiar with the parable of the Judgment of Solomon (if not, then go and ask an RE teacher. And maybe don’t apply to work in a church school any time soon).
The parable explains how King Solomon made a ruling in the case of a baby claimed by two women. He proposed cutting the baby in half, and gave it to the woman who feared for its life. The beauty of that parable is not so much what it tells us about love, but the reaction you get when you tell it to a class.
Many in education believe deeply in intrinsic motivation: pupils should do well because it’s important to them and their internal self
“What? Hang on. No, that can’t be right. Why would he give the baby to the woman who was happy to give it away, rather than the woman who loves it so much that she is prepared to take only half of it?”
I was reminded of this when I read Professor Simon Burgess’ new study, on what nerdy economists call conditional cash transfers (or, in normal speak, bribing people to do good stuff they wouldn’t otherwise do. Specifically, paying kids to work hard and study and pass exams). Burgess, a professor of economics at the University of Bristol, found significant benefits for the lowest-achieving pupils - many of whom were eligible for free school meals.
In the run-up to their GCSEs, paying these pupils up to £80 a half-term in exchange for doing various tasks (£30 for doing work in class, a further £30 for homework, £10 for turning up to school and £10 for good behaviour) led to an improvement in GCSE pass rates of up to 10 per cent.
Or, as the author put it to me, “one year treatment costing max £350 per kid erased half the FSM penalty through secondary school”. To quote a famous intellectual, that’s bigly. I’ve long been an advocate of conditional cash transfers - although much of the (mostly US) evidence before this study showed minimal impact. But it’s safe to say that they’re controversial within public policy, even if and when they can be shown to work.
A tale of two pupils
The squeamishness comes largely because many in education believe deeply in intrinsic motivation: pupils should do well because it’s important to them and their internal self. Doing well because they have motivation from an external factor - extrinsic motivation - is more troublesome, because it can destroy intrinsic motivation, and because it’s temporary, disappearing when the reward does.
In other words, schools are better off making pupils understand why GCSEs are important, and improving their results that way, rather than resorting to a short-term bribe, which could cause more problems down the line. (I pause here to note the frequency with which many people I know argue this, but also reward their own children for getting good exam results or school reports.)
But here’s the Wisdom of Solomon. Take two pupils - one of whom is intrinsically motivated, the other disengaged. Offer them both some cash, and they both pass their GCSEs. Which pupil would you rather have in your A-level class?
Most people say the former. But here’s the thing - the latter pupil did just as well despite being disengaged. Imagine their potential if they can now be re-engaged and motivated. I’d take the second pupil every time.
Jonathan Simons is a former head of education in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Gordon Brown and David Cameron
