TEACHERS should be paid on the results of regular tests, a leading educationalist claims today.

Professor John Hattie, who believes Britain should adopt a system of objective testing of teachers, will outline his views in a public lecture in the North-East.

The New Zealand academic recently returned from the US, where he helped to introduce a system for teachers to undergo regular written tests, backed by unedited video recordings of their classroom sessions.

A similar system is in use in New Zealand, based on Prof Hattie's extensive research and conclusions about motivating and rewarding teachers.

Marks scored by teachers, based on the test results and assessment of their classroom performance, play a part in judging how much they should be paid.

Prof Hattie, of the University of Auckland, will tell his audience in Newcastle that performance-related pay has failed in every country where it has been tried.

He said one factor is that school heads had no means of objectively assessing the performance of teachers, so rewarded the most experienced, rather than the most effective.

"The British Government really has got this wrong. All the evidence points to the need for objective tests for teachers, rather than simply relying on the opinion of another teacher," he said.

He will outline his views in full at the lecture, The Difference Between Experienced and Expert Teachers, in The Old Library Building, at Newcastle University, at 5pm. For details call 0191-222 6000.