Teachers salaries

[Cillian]

We have the second best paid teachers in the world.

Second only two South Korea.


And I don't believe that we are in fact the second most expensive country to live in on that fact.



And as obie1kenobe has already pointed out, increasing the pay packages, is only inflationary. Thus creating a whole new need to increase again the next year, and the next year, and the next year..

[JollyRedGiant]

The article says that primary school teachers start on close to €40,000. I'll take that as somewhere around €35,000 being the Indo. Even then the figure is questionable seeing as most teachers don't seem to get full time employment until they're a few years into their career. Even at €35,000 it would be competitive with other graduate jobs. Do we want burger flipping to be an attractive and viable career alternative to teaching?

You are accurate here -

I qualified as a secondary school teacher a year and a half ago. I do not have a contract . If I have work I get a phone call at 8.50am in the morning and am told we need you in 10 minutes to cover a class. I might not get another class for the rest of the day - but I have to be ready every morning at 8.50am in case I get that call. If I don't go when called - I don't get called again.

Some weeks I will get 20 hours teaching, some weeks 10, some weeks 4 - I don't get paid for holidays and I have to work teaching French students who come over here for English during the summer (part-time) to pay my family's bills. There are hundreds of teachers in the same boat as me and from next January I will have no work.

I am registered with the teaching council - but to complete my certification I have to work 735 hours teaching - the problem is that the teaching council only could the weeks when you work more than 18 hours in one week.

How do you get a job -

In the voluntary sector (the majority of schools) - if there is a vacancy they first offer it to surplus teachers in other schools if they have the subjects (the teacher has to take it).

If there is no teacher with the subjects then it is offered to teachers on the voluntary transfer panel.

If there is no teacher with the subjects on the transfer panel then they offer it to the supplementary panel. To get on the supplementary panel you have to work for two years with at least 18hours per week in one school - or if you work in more than one school you have to do three years. There are 3,500 teachers on the supplementary panel. If the supplementary panel is exhausted they advertise the job.

Most teachers hope to get a contract for a few hours in a school and hope to pick up extra money by getting subbing. After three years you might get a CID (contract of indefinite duration) but it will be based on the small number of contract hours not your total hours worked.

In my school at least 30% of the teachers are not permanent but on CID's. Most of these do not have full hours.

So you can look at the teachers salaries and say - 'they're well paid' but at least 25%-30% of teachers do not get a full-time salary and many (like me) get significantly less.

How many other jobs would you find workers having to jump through such hoops to try and get a job?

permanent - pensionable - my a*se

more like dogsbody

[Clanrickard]

FYI - teachers fund their own pensions and salary protection out of their own pockets.

No they don't. The money comes from the private sector.

[Clanrickard]

How many other jobs would you find workers having to jump through such hoops to try and get a job?

permanent - pensionable - my a*se

more like dogsbody

I agree with you with regard to start off teachers. But the permanent ones have a cushy number. Also don't you agree that there should be rewwards for the good teachers and punishemnet and sackings for the duds. Thereby making way for those starting off on the career ladde.

[Clanrickard]

Again - Teachers fund their own pensions, deducted fortnightly from their wages, and subject to the same conditions as any private sector employee. In this they are treated differently from civil servants who enjoy a state-backed, guaranteed pension.

Their wages come from the fruits of the private sector. If you are employed by the government you don't pay taxes or pay a pension plan. This is a double accounting trick. Give the money to public servants and then take some back. Unneccessary bureacracy.

[BodyofEvidence]

A significant minority (possibly a majority but i'm not sure) of our teachers do NOT have a university degree - they have the H Dip and that's it.
!!

And they get into the H Dip with no undergraduate degree? Wow....what university does that?

[Middleaged]

Originally Posted by D.Harry
Again - Teachers fund their own pensions, deducted fortnightly from their wages, and subject to the same conditions as any private sector employee. In this they are treated differently from civil servants who enjoy a state-backed, guaranteed pension.

Are you saying that teachers pensions are not giving a contribution by the Govt.? because if you are your facts need review. Teachers have for the most part "defined benefit" pension with 2/3 final salary schemes.

[Oppenheimer]

There is a lot of pure an utter shyte being posted on this thread. The one class of the public service that provides a valuable service is getting it in the neck for the shortcomings of the non-productive elements of the public service. The fact that most of you can type and write (though thinking is questionable) is down to the fact you were taught (cue the one home schooled genius response).

I am not a teacher, I was at one point before I went into the private sector - because I had higher salary growth prospects. I respect the teaching profession for what it is. I completely disrespect the dog's dinner that has been made of managing it. I agree with the idea of performance-related pay and also that there are many "duds" in the system BUT there are "duds" too who started out great and became institutionalised by the system.

All reducing teachers' salaries will do is to disincentivise them to do a good job - even those who do a great job at the moment. Do you want to expose the human beings you value over all others to that? I know I do not. Again, I would like to kick out the people who run this system and I have a particular ire dating back years to the Dept. of Education and the idiots who have the cushy numbers there who have royally f*cked it up as a system AND who take my money and put it into their pensions (not the teacher's pensions).

Someone mentioned doing a review (Adrem I think) - yes, a good idea in principle - but to give this idea to the current mentality that exists in our Govt. will just give them license to waste more money on consultants rather than force the Dept. of Education to clean up its act.

[zakalwe1]

i agree, notice how the cuts don't extend to the admin staff in the depts, only substitute teachers etc. i.e. cuts to front line staff but not admin (expendible) staff.

[Big Bobo]

Oh yes it's nothing to do with capitalism in crisis, sub-prime lending, 100% mortgages, construction falling on it's @rse etc It's all about teachers being overpaid! Quick let's bring in some cheap foreign labour and sack them all!

I don't blame the people on here for being so ignorant, it's the mainstream media and rabid right wing "economists" who are to blame.