By Sandra Davie, Senior Writer

PRESIDENT Barack Obama's education adviser is a keen advocate of paying six-figure salaries to the best teachers.

Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University's Professor of Education, says that if society is willing to pay the best bankers such high salaries, it should also be willing to do the same for the most effective teachers.

After all, teachers are likely to have as big an impact on the future course of a nation as bankers. It is teachers who have a major influence on the most valuable asset a nation has - its youth.

Fresh from her recent visit to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Education, the 57-year-old says that a large number of studies point up the pivotal role teachers play.

'In the last 10 years there's been a lot of research done about what makes a difference for student achievement, and it's now clear that the single most important determinant of what students learn is what their teachers know.

'Teacher qualifications, teacher knowledge and skills, make more difference for student learning than any other single factor.'

One of the more recent studies was that conducted in North Carolina by academics Charles Clotfelter, Helen Ladd and Jacob Vigdor. It found that a teacher's experience, test scores and certification all had a big impact on student achievement.

In comparison to the effects of changes in class size or to the socio-economic background of students - such as the education level of their parents - teacher credentials were way out in front.

Prof Darling-Hammond insists that 'you cannot ignore teacher effects - the difference is substantial'.

She points out that another study - this one by statistician William Sanders - disputes the connection made by much of the education world between poverty and low student performance.

He found that all other factors studied, such as class size, ethnicity, location and poverty, all paled into triviality compared to teacher effectiveness.

Furthermore, his research showed that students unlucky enough to have a succession of poor teachers were virtually doomed for the education cellar.

His study found that students with three straight years of effective teachers had 60 per cent greater achievement than those who had a succession of ineffective teachers.

The professor's own study in 2005 of more than 132,000 students and 4,400 teachers in the Houston public school district found that those students taught by certified teachers outperformed the ones who had non-certified teachers in reading and mathematics.

It also demonstrated that well-qualified teachers make more of a difference to lagging students.

So, she insists, the best teachers should be teaching the weakest children, who stand to benefit the most from having a well-qualified and experienced teacher.

She adds: 'Teaching is the profession on which all other professions depend. Indeed, everybody who is anybody was enabled to become somebody by a teacher.'

So why is there a reluctance around the world to pay good teachers top dollar?

Before answering that question, she insists that Singapore does not pay its teachers poorly. There is nothing but praise for the Education Ministry, which as far back as 2001 revised teachers' salaries and allowed for faster promotion and different specialist tracks for those who prove themselves in the classroom.

But she notes that in many parts of the world, including in some parts of the United States, teachers' salaries lag behind other workers with similar levels of education.

She suggests that one of the reasons for lower pay could be that teaching has become a feminised profession.

'Also teaching was traditionally seen as semi-skilled labour or even baby-sitting. Today we still hear people say that teachers work only half a day.'

Prof Darling-Hammond, who began her own career in education as a teacher after she had graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, insists that higher pay is only fair given that teaching is often extremely hard work.

It is difficult enough managing a two-hour birthday party for 30 kids, she says, what more meeting learning goals with those same kids over an extended period of time.

'Effective teachers must figure out what students already think and believe in order to help bring them to the curriculum - and bring the curriculum to them.

'And, because every student has his own personality, viewpoint and a unique starting point in his educational journey, teaching is invariably complicated,' she adds.

Prof Darling-Hammond, who is credited with having influenced Mr Obama's education policy, says governments must be willing to dig deep to attract the best into the profession and to retain them.

They must also leave enough in the pot to invest in good teacher training. She claims all the research shows that in order to improve student learning, governments have to invest in teachers' own learning.

'We have to be sure that teachers understand not only their content area, which is very important, but also how students learn; how different students learn differently; how students acquire language; how second language learners need to be taught; how we organise curricula in ways that are effective.'

Countries focused on getting and keeping high-quality teachers, setting high standards for teacher education and ensuring that teachers get lots of access to professional knowledge, have the highest achievement levels for students.

'Around the world, the highest-achieving nations have poured resources into teacher training and support over the last decade.'

She brings up Finland which attributes its meteoric rise in achievement to a massive overhaul of teacher education it undertook two decades ago.

And she stresses that it is only with good teachers that nations can move away from the 'factory model' of education to create one that meets the intellectual demands of the 21st century.

During much of the 20th century, most workers held two or three jobs during their lifetimes, she points out. Now the estimates are that many of today's workers will hold more than 10 jobs before they reach the age of 40.

'The top 10 in-demand jobs projected for 2010 did not exist in 2004. In today's world, individual and societal success increasingly depends on our capacity to learn. And societies rely, as never before, on our capacity to teach.

'We should all acknowledge the great work of teachers and be prepared to train them well and pay them well for the important job they do.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.