A quick comparison:
A fairly new teacher on £25000 per year working 195 days per year. 25,000 divided by 195 is about £128 per working day.
A fairly new nurse on £25000 per year working 3 x 12 (or 12.5) hour shifts per week (this is considered full time). 25000 divided by 3 divided by 47 is about £177 per shift. I'm working on the basis of 47 weeks not 48 because of bank holidays which most people get in addition to their leave entitlement. Most bank holidays (apart from the May one) occur in school holidays so they are part of the weeks that teachers are already not contracted for. I'm guessing that if a nurse worked a bank holiday s/he would get a day off in lieu or get paid overtime but I'm willing to be corrected on this
Of course you can argue that teachers don't work 12.5 hour days but
a) many do work a fairly close eqivalent to that in term time especially when all the weekend work is added into the mix;
b) they aren't getting paid as much per day the nurse is per shift;
c)and then of course they also do extra work in the "so called" holidays (for which, in the above calculations I have not counted them as getting paid)
So this seems to be not far off an equivalent by my reckoning with teachers perhaps being a bit worse off.
Nobody seems to think that nurses have a cushy job or that they should take time from their annual leave because a poster's child was not seen quickly enough in A and E (for example). I really don't see why anyone thinks that teachers have it easier that other public sector workers.
By the way, I'm absolutely not knocking nurses who do a fantastic job and work hard under all sorts of pressures - just picked it to make a comparison. It would be interesting to do similar types of calculations for other public sector professionals ( fire-fighter, police officer?)