Teachers Pay

[caveman]

Ronan Lyon's graph focusses on the daily rate earned by teachers, for some reason. I'm not sure what it's supposed to demonstrate, and I'd be grateful if one of the posters in this thread who consider it significant could tell me why.

That OECD report also has a list of hourly earnings (after 15yrs experience, adjusted for US$ PPP etc), broken down by Primary, Lower Secondary and Upper Secondary. I've taken a simple average of the three for indicative purposes (with apologies to Oppenheimer for my statistical sloppiness).

Just looking at the Eurozone countries for which figures are available (and, again, a simple average of the two Belgian entries), we get a leaderboard that looks something like this:

Luxembourg 123.8
Germany 69.1
Finland 65.2
Belgium 64.4
Netherlands 63.3
Ireland 61.9
Austria 60.3
Greece 58.0
Spain 56.0
Italy 49.1
France 47.7
Portugal 43.1

OECD average 57.5
EU19 average 60.4

This excludes the pension levy, which would take Ireland's position down a bit.

If anyone's good at graphs, maybe they could do a bar chart or something. It might get into a blog then.

I know of a Luxembourg school looking for an English teacher. With the above statistics you would wonder why they do not receive more interest.

[Conor]

Yeah, except for the very item being graphed--per diem pay--is irrelevant in the domain of teaching where pay per contact hour is of much greater relevance. This is because 'teaching days' vary widely among OECD countries. 'Contact hours' also vary insofar as class sizes are different. So the best measure would be student contact hours. Even just taking pay per contact hour, Ireland is in the middle of the OECD pack. Given the class sizes, if one took pay per student contact hour, Ireland's teachers would be an outright bargain.

The data on class sizes is a good bit spottier, and seems to totally exclude Upper Secondary, but working with what we're given, taking another simple average of Primary and Lower Secondary, the list above reads as follows:

Netherlands 23.9
Ireland 23.8
France 23.5
Germany 23.5
Portugal 22.9
Austria 22.0
Spain 21.6
Greece 21.1
Belgium 20.8
Finland 19.9
Italy 19.5
Luxembourg 17.8

So, a quick calculation gives us the following per student, per hour indicator:

Luxembourg 6.9
Finland 3.3
Belgium 3.1
Germany 2.9
Greece 2.8
Austria 2.7
Netherlands 2.7
Ireland 2.6
Spain 2.6
Italy 2.5
France 2.0
Portugal 1.9

Again, the pension levy would take us down a couple of pegs (but then, I don't know if other countries also apply a special public sector tax).

[uriah]

I agree the number of hours per day would be useful to include but I'm not sure contact hours is a valid comparison.

Why not? Should it not at least be included in any direct comparison?

For every contact hour you must also factor in preparation and correction time. Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane etc may be on air for just two hours but you can be sure that their on-air presentation takes hours of preparation, review etc. It's what professionals do.

There are many jobs in which the worker can walk in without any preparation whatsoever and walk out at the end of his/her day leaving the job completely behind in the workplace. Teaching is not such a job.

[Bonzo1970]

Interesting topic that actually, one would wonder why we dont hear teacher unions shouting more about this. Reading on another post about vec teachers and part time teachers, and they seem to get a raw deal, more from the perspective that the part time status is long term (not the terms and conditions of the part time, just the fact that it tends to be so lon imho).

I wonder why teacher unions are not shouting about this more ? Also, how much of the temporary teacher posts are related to other work practice/terms and conditions such as unpaid leave, career breaks, teachers running for election etc. I realise some of these are being curbed now, but what sort of impact did they have overall, and why have trade union remained so relatively quiet about this ?

It was highlighted at several conferences.It was reported in press but they obviously like to paint us as miltants and didnt give it huge space.Career breaks create jobs so they are not a bad idea and are not only found in publiv sector -the others are insignificant.

[Proposition Joe]

Career breaks create jobs so they are not a bad idea and are not only found in publiv sector -the others are insignificant.

Career breaks of the type offered to the public service are all about exploitation, not job creation.

The original employee gets to keep their permanent job warm for years on end, while the position is filled by someone struggling from temporary contract to temporary contract with even less job security than they'd have in the private sector.

The reason the unions don't bleat on about this is that the older permanent employees who dominate the union power structures are only too happy to be complicit in the exploitation of the younger perma-temps. Solidarity is a highly selective thing in the Irish union movement.

[Proposition Joe]

The data on class sizes is a good bit spottier, and seems to totally exclude Upper Secondary, but working with what we're given, taking another simple average of Primary and Lower Secondary, the list above reads as follows:

Netherlands 23.9
Ireland 23.8
France 23.5
Germany 23.5
Portugal 22.9
Austria 22.0
Spain 21.6
Greece 21.1
Belgium 20.8
Finland 19.9
Italy 19.5
Luxembourg 17.8

So, a quick calculation gives us the following per student, per hour indicator:

Luxembourg 6.9
Finland 3.3
Belgium 3.1
Germany 2.9
Greece 2.8
Austria 2.7
Netherlands 2.7
Ireland 2.6
Spain 2.6
Italy 2.5
France 2.0
Portugal 1.9

Again, the pension levy would take us down a couple of pegs (but then, I don't know if other countries also apply a special public sector tax).

Jeez lads, nothing gets the public service calculators whirring like a pay comparison

Here's a challenge for the amateur statisticians. Come up with a metric based on the OCED data that would put Irish teachers at or near the bottom of the heap pay-wise. Ye could factor in a premium for teaching in a pre-fab, and maybe divide your salaries by two to account for bi-lingual education at primary level

[hopi watcher]

The reason the unions don't bleat on about this is that the older permanent employees who dominate the union power structures are only too happy to be complicit in the exploitation of the younger perma-temps. Solidarity is a highly selective thing in the Irish union movement.

How do you think this scheme should operate? Why do I get the feeling that if the repalcement was offered a permanenet job, you would be the first on here giving out about it?

[Ernie Ball]

Here's a challenge for the amateur statisticians. Come up with a metric based on the OCED data that would but Irish teachers at or near the bottom of the heap pay-wise. Ye could factor in a premium for teaching in a pre-fab, and maybe divide your salaries by two to account for bi-lingual education at primary level

I have a better idea: let's just insist in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that teachers simply must be overpaid because, well, we prefer to believe it. Works for Kevin Myers and the rest of the Irish Independent columnists!

[wexfordman]

e.Career breaks create jobs so they are not a bad idea and are not only found in publiv sector -the others are insignificant.

Poor quality jobs by the sound of it. We have teachers on temp contracts complaining about terms and conditions, about missed pension payments and having to pay pension levy irrespective. We also have the ridiculous scenario (across teh ps, not just with teachers) where long term career breaks result in a temp position being held by some poor sod on lower terms and conditions than they would have had had they been able to take a permanent position. I have no problem with career breaks, but the likes of ones in operation over recent years are obviously causing problems.

Holding someones job open indefenitely (or for 5 years) and filling it with a temp is has so many downsides as to obliterate any potential upsides, for both the employee, the temp and the service being run.

With regards it being highlighted in the conference, in what perspective was it raised ? Were they comlaining about the terms of temp contract workers asking for same benefits as permanent teachers (pension, pay etc) or were they asking for the number of temp workers to be reduced ?

[Proposition Joe]

How do you think this scheme should operate?

It shouldn't. Operate that is.

Why do I get the feeling that if the repalcement was offered a permanenet job, you would be the first on here giving out about it?

Obviously the replacement can't be offered a permanent job, if the original teacher can return and reclaim the position at the drop of a hat after 4 or 5 years (or even 30 years in the case of staunch union brudder Tony Gregory).

If the replacement had also been made permanent, the department wouldn't even be able to re-deploy them to another school where they're needed, once the original position holder returns. So instead the new teacher would continue to be paid in a supernumery capacity despite now being surplus to requirements. There are already 175 supernumery positions in the system, wasting 11 million a year. Enough to cover the cervical cancer vaccine, as it happens. No perk goes unpunished elsewhere in the system.

The state shouldn't indulge a person's whim to try writing that novel for a few years, or try their luck at politics for a few decades. All the while protected by a safety net of an open permanent job, minded for them by an exploited young perma-temp.

If you want to teach, then teach.

But if you don't want the job, then get off the pot and allow someone else to take your place fully.