Just following on from a topic I read earlier where once again someone said teachers were really well paid had a great pension and brilliant working hours. The teachers reply that no one can understand how hard they work and the pay is not as good as before, has been eroded. And if people are really jealous of teachers why not become one, there are loads of vacancies.
So what are the arguments.
My mum was a national school teacher, trained for 2 years, started working at 19, retired with 40 years service at 59, about 25 years ago. Every time teachers get a pay rise her pension increases, she is probably getting more now in her pension than in her wages when she retired.
She worked hard, there was no maternity leave, she had to pay a sub from her wages to cover her while out on maternity leave. She worked until the day my baby sister was born. Conditions were poor in the school, very bad heating etc. I did see her doing prep work for school at home, but it was not significant. All in all she rarely worked outside the 9-3 school hours, she was available before & after school to meet with parents. She was on holiday when we were on holiday. It seemed an ideal job really. The Irish requirement killed it for me, I was pretty useless.
Nowadays I see trainee teachers really really struggle to get full time jobs, second level seems to be odd hours here and there, and primary is all subbing, with no 12 month contracts. But once people are permanent and pensionable they appear very happy with their lot. The work appears to be equally as hard as anyone else’s with deadlines, stresses etc. But like many people working for the government they are protected from commercial realities, like poor wage increases, redundancy, companies downsizing, etc.
So what are the arguments.
My mum was a national school teacher, trained for 2 years, started working at 19, retired with 40 years service at 59, about 25 years ago. Every time teachers get a pay rise her pension increases, she is probably getting more now in her pension than in her wages when she retired.
She worked hard, there was no maternity leave, she had to pay a sub from her wages to cover her while out on maternity leave. She worked until the day my baby sister was born. Conditions were poor in the school, very bad heating etc. I did see her doing prep work for school at home, but it was not significant. All in all she rarely worked outside the 9-3 school hours, she was available before & after school to meet with parents. She was on holiday when we were on holiday. It seemed an ideal job really. The Irish requirement killed it for me, I was pretty useless.
Nowadays I see trainee teachers really really struggle to get full time jobs, second level seems to be odd hours here and there, and primary is all subbing, with no 12 month contracts. But once people are permanent and pensionable they appear very happy with their lot. The work appears to be equally as hard as anyone else’s with deadlines, stresses etc. But like many people working for the government they are protected from commercial realities, like poor wage increases, redundancy, companies downsizing, etc.