Teachers demand 10% pay rise in the middle of a recession

[itszamora]

BBC NEWS | Education | Teachers demand 10% pay increase

Thoughts? F**king disgrace would be mine, yes they work hard and so on but so do I and I get a damn sight less than them and had to pay for my training, unlike teachers who get given £6,000 by the Government just to do a PGCE. Absolutely disgusting.

 

[Robdinho]

I bet you don't get 13 weeks holiday a year either!

A lot of my friends are teachers and yes, they do work very hard, but what they don't seem to realise, having in many cases never left the education environment, is that so do a lot of other people, often on less money than they are.

 

[clippedgull]

Lets not even mention the long holidays they get into the bargain!

They haven't got a hope in hell of getting 10%.

 

[Kneon Light]

I'm a teacher and even I find this stupid!
To be honest I think that we get paid fine now.
As long as the pay rise is in line with inflation which was what was agreed (2.3%??) than I think that is fair.
There are a lot more pressing issues for teachers at the moment than pay imo

 

[itszamora]

I bet you don't get 13 weeks holiday a year either!

A lot of my friends are teachers and yes, they do work very hard, but what they don't seem to realise, having in many cases never left the education environment, is that so do a lot of other people, often on less money than they are.

Yes I too have a lot of teacher friends and I agree with your comment. In fact I had one just the other week gloating about her easter holiday..charming. I'm a freelance journalist at the moment so any holiday is effectively unpaid, if and when I get a contract somewhere that'll be the statutory 25 days for me!

 

[itszamora]

I'm a teacher and even I find this stupid!
To be honest I think that we get paid fine now.
As long as the pay rise is in line with inflation which was what was agreed (2.3%??) than I think that is fair.
There are a lot more pressing issues for teachers at the moment than pay imo

2.3% I think yes. Certainly wouldn't begrudge you that even though many people are getting pay freezes this year. But by asking for 10% I think the NUT might have committed a massive PR gaffe.

 

[Zebedee]

My next door neighbour is a PE teacher in a private primary school. He gets upwards of 17 weeks paid holiday a year and still thinks he is hard done by. He doesn't know when he is well off. £35K+ a year for 8 months' work. Nice if you can get it.

 

[Husty]

If anyone deserves a pay rise its midwifes... theyve seen paycuts several years ina row... while doctors pay skyrockets!

 

[Prettyboyshaw]

Perhaps it should be in line with the perfomance of the kids they teach...so pay cut it is then.

 

[TrickyOne]

Perhaps it should be in line with the perfomance of the kids they teach...so pay cut it is then.

That's a little harsh and short sighted really. I'm a teacher, and whilst I do get a lot of holiday, that is part of the deal that goes with the job. All schools work towards performance requirements set out by central government. When I was at school teachers were respected within the community; things have changed now. I teach in a socially deprived area where the parents are often not overly supportive of their childrens education and getting them into school in the first place is a challenge. 10% is a lot, do you really think that the unions believe that is what they will get? The government will pay as little as they can get away with, which, is exactly what they will do with all the pay for civil servants.

 

[TrickyOne]

The shit pay is why the quality of teachers in this country is so dire.

Exactly IT, I work with newly qualified teachers and they are paid f*** all. It'll take them 5 years to get to £25-27k, by which time in the current situation will be worth the same as what they earn now! To teach kids that don't want to be taught!

 

[itszamora]

The shit pay is why the quality of teachers in this country is so dire.

Is the pay really that shit though? There are professions that pay more but there are also those that pay a lot worse. Lots of the teachers I know kind of fell into it because they didn't know what to do when they left University, I don't know if this has more to do with it.

 

[mr sheen]

I work in the public sector. We have been offered a 0.5% pay increase for 09-10.

 

[withdeanwombat]

Was a lecturer before I retired (in Further Education) and had the "holidays" and the pay.

True,as my mortgage became more manageable I could afford a couple of weeks holiday per year,and I certainly thought myself well enough off.And on paper there were 14 weeks holiday initially,though F.E. moved long ago to a longer working year.Many of those weeks were spent in getting ready for the next term,and in my early teaching years I had to take on teaching English to foreign johnnies to make those mortgage payments.No,it wasn't as hard as YOUR job,couldn't be,but hard nonetheless.

The 10% claim is,of course,spurious,and I guess the teachers' union is trying to beat the inflation link.They won't.

I suspect most people would like more money for what they do,and because I wasn't always in teaching I know how hard other jobs are,and that generally most folk work really hard for their money.Actually,most teachers do,too.

But it is totally out of order to make this claim at this time as several folk have suggested.Good to have a secure job right now,I think.

 

[TrickyOne]

Is the pay really that shit though? There are professions that pay more but there are also those that pay a lot worse. Lots of the teachers I know kind of fell into it because they didn't know what to do when they left University, I don't know if this has more to do with it.

To be honest, after working in industry for the time I have, I consider myself extremely experienced and bring that to my teaching, I have always wanted to teach but wanted to do it when I felt that I had enough experience to carry it off. I am, however, an unqualified teacher and, therefore am paid as such, which when I started was less than what I was earning. There are teachers that have only ever been in education that, IMHO are rubbish and not worth what they are being paid or even a pay rise as they don't tend to embrace new teaching theories and ideas but; unfortunately they've been in the job for years and by the time they retire the new blood ain't new any more!!

 

[Gazwag]

Exactly IT, I work with newly qualified teachers and they are paid f*** all. It'll take them 5 years to get to £25-27k, by which time in the current situation will be worth the same as what they earn now! To teach kids that don't want to be taught!

ONLY 5 years to get to £25-27k I wish I had chosen to be a teacher

 

[fairy cakes]

My brother is a teacher. He simply couldn't stand teaching secondary school as he taught little shits who simply didn’t want to learn. Some of the kids were simply happy to live of the government because its what their parents do.
So he now teachers at college.

Think some main problems at schools (specially deprived ones) are the ones that do not want to be taught. I would be up for giving deprived school teachers a 10-15% rise. Hopefully getting the best teachers to teach awful children and improving the children lives and them actually contributing to society rather than living of benefits for the rest of their lives.

Secondly in some subjects areas there are major shortages and not enough teachers to go round. Think maths and English are in high demand.

 

[TrickyOne]

ONLY 5 years to get to £25-27k I wish I had chosen to be a teacher

Granted fella, National Stats say that £27k is the average to April 09 for a man. I do appreciate that 5 years is not a long time to get to this amount, for myself, I earn a bit less but have years of industry experience, yet until I get my Qualified Status my wage do not reflect my contribution to the education sector. At the end of the day we all choose our own paths and I am very lucky to have a secure job.

 

[kalinski]

I'm a teacher and even I find this stupid!
To be honest I think that we get paid fine now.
As long as the pay rise is in line with inflation which was what was agreed (2.3%??) than I think that is fair.
There are a lot more pressing issues for teachers at the moment than pay imo

Ditto - so lets not tar us all with the same brush

 

[Tooting Gull]

I've got a lot more time for teachers than the thread starter clearly has, but this does seem a misjudgment.

All the anecdotal evidence I have is that already teaching is attracting good people from other jobs/careers, relatively it is more attractive today for certainly people like journalists, so the pay and prospects can't be that bad.

Even taking into account that there could be historical shortfalls that need to be made up, you just aren't going to get 10 per cent at the moment.

It will lose teachers support from reasonable people, and provide ammunition for unreasonable people who don't appreciate what a good and diffcult job they do (most of them, anyway).