Boris Johnson offers top teachers £3,000 ‘levelling up premium’ to work in underperforming schools

Boris Johnson dangled a £3,000 carrot in front of the country’s top science and maths teachers today in a bid to improve education in the worst-performing areas of Britain. 

The Prime Minister used his party conference speech in Manchester to unveil plans for a ‘premium’ to entice the best educators to take on challenging pupils. 

The three-year scheme will be open to teachers with between one and five years of experience in the profession, and run for three years at a cost of £60million. 

Downing St said the funding was ‘new money’ and the scheme will cover four subjects: maths, physics, chemistry and computing.

However critics claimed it was a reheated version of an ‘early-career payments’ programme for teachers in maths, physics, chemistry and languages. It paid grants of up to £5,000 but was scrapped last year.

Mr Johnson highlighted the wildly differing life chances in areas of the country that are often close to each other, branding it ‘an appalling waste of potential that is holding this country back’. 

The Tory leader has made ‘levelling up’ deprived parts of the UK a priority for the Government, with wide-ranging and controversial economic plans that he defended in front of the party faithful this morning.

The Prime Minister explained to Tory delegates his drive to ‘level up’ the country, saying: ‘The idea in a nutshell is you will find talent, genius, care, imagination and enthusiasm everywhere in this country, all of them evenly distributed but opportunity is not. 

‘To level up, on top of the extra £14 billion we’re putting into education, on top of the increase that means every teacher starts with a salary of £30,000, we’re announcing today a levelling-up premium of up to £3,000 to send the best maths and science teachers to the places that need them most.’ 

But Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘Boris Johnson is right to focus on society’s built-in inequality. But given this stated aim to ”level up”, he has made a very poor start. 

‘Introducing a £3,000 premium for maths and science teachers is welcome but ignores the fact that there are teacher shortages across the curriculum.

‘Unreasonable and intensive workload, pay and lack of professional agency is driving teachers from the profession in ever increasing numbers. This must be addressed by the Government urgently.’

Asked if Mr Johnson’s announcement was a return of an old policy, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC: ‘I’m a pragmatist when it comes to these things.’