Education plays a great role in the advancement and success of every society. While there are many factors which affect how well a student learns, the teacher is no doubt one of the most important. Some people believe that teachers would be able to teach their students more if they were better motivated. For this reason, they suggest that teachers be paid according to how much their students learn. In my opinion, this is not a good idea for the following reasons.

First, although a teacher can have a great influence on students, he is not the sole determiner of the students’ success. Other factors, such as the school curriculum and the home environment of the students, must be considered. Therefore, not only is the plan to pay teachers according to the success of their students unfair to the teachers, but it may lead the education authorities to disregard other important factors. Second, while basing their pay on how much their students learn might motivate teachers to teach better, it will certainly lead them to put too much pressure on the students. Furthermore, depending on how the students are evaluated, such a system might cause teachers to put too much emphasis on test scores and ignore other measurements of learning.

For these reasons, I think that paying teachers according to how much their students learn is not a good idea. It is unfair to both the teachers and the students and may be detrimental to the learning process. This, in turn, would be disadvantageous to the society as a whole.