To think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

[donutque]

Not a teacher, but my logic seems sound.

I’ve seen plenty of threads / comments on here that question if teachers are really that underpaid (often quoting 28k as a starting salary) which seems like a strange race to the bottom.

I work in finance and wouldn’t take a job for a low salary, I’m in my twenties and I’m compensated well. I believe I deserve that, I name my price when I go for jobs and won’t accept lower. This is because I’m 1) qualified 2) have a skill and the market demands me, I am in short supply.

I can see a response I may get is that
teachers, whilst good, aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or talented / high quality individuals. But IS IT ANY WONDER?! The top talent graduates and gets sucked in by the big 4 / investment banks / magic circle all because of money (I promise you that it is rare that a child just bloody loves debits and credits, has a passion for selling stock, or checking the bank statement matches the p&l) Of course, some top grads go into teaching but this is usually because of their personality type (desire to give back / do good / love of children). It’s not the common occurrence. They certainly aren’t doing it for the big pay off.

So if teachers started on, let’s say, £30k but upon qualifying were paid £50k, with a teacher with 5-10 years service being on 60/70/80/90k (no extra responsibility), I guarantee applications would be flooded. Teaching would be a career that is attractive. You’d have the best teachers, which is important. Not just for basic education but teachers are what gets your little offspring into university to become the next doctor, lawyer, politician, plumber, accountant and so on. Teachers are LITERALLY the backbone of society.

Scandi countries document well how education leads to greater GDP, and a basic understanding of economics will explain why paying teachers well is far more beneficial to the economy than anyone who says “but how do we afford it?!”

so, AIBU to think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

Kids at school laugh saying they would never go into teaching

But schools are struggling to recruit. There's a massive shortage.

Never understood this argument about people making up what jobs should be paid what. It’s supply and demand.

I have long believed that all public sevtor workers should be the most highly paid and highly revered, as they provide the bedrock on which society depends.

Are you willing to pay significantly more tax to fund this? Because we have a huge public debt at present.

My brother works in a large retailer's warehouse in Yorkshire on a zero hours contract for minimum wage. It's heavy, physical work and he gets shouted at if he goes to the loo. He has a degree and an MBA. He provides a service too so why shouldn't he be paid the same as people in the public sector? There's plenty of jobs in the private sector that are paid poorly.

This is all bullshit. Norway is hugely rich and if it thinks teachers striking is a threat to public health, it should pay them accordingly.

He can go and get a better paid job with his MBA.

Teachers, nurses, doctors etc are predominately 'stuck' in public sector jobs. If they go and work in private, they get slagged off for it. But that's their only option.

If you think teachers don't deserve more than £28k-£32k because they 'scrapped' a C in Maths, what do you think of 20-something year old bricklayers getting paid £45k for 'scrapping' even less GCSE's? And of course self employed tradespeople on £100k+ who might've scrapped similar numbers of GCSE's to a teacher or less.

Not sure of your point, but there's nothing to stop teachers becoming bricklayers, electricians, plumbers etc.

I know quite a few tradespeople who've become teachers, but none who've done it the other way round. 🤔

*He can go and get a better paid job with his MBA.

Teachers, nurses, doctors etc are predominately 'stuck' in public sector jobs. If they go and work in private, they get slagged off for it. But that's their only option.*

Except he can't as there's limited employment opportunities where he lives. I'm not slagging people off for transferring to the private sector, that's their prerogative and I'd probably do the same in their shoes.

My point is that it's not a bed of roses for many people in rage private

Why on earth would you need a PhD to be a headteacher? Most of being a headteacher is finance, hr, site management.... What would this PhD be in???

Sorry sent too soon. It's not a bed of roses for many people in the private sector either. There's been pay freezes for a while but they don't all have unions to exert pressure. They also don't have nice pensions at the end of it.

At the moment there's a massive shortage of teachers, which suggests that there aren't enough people out there with a passion for the job to staff the nations schools.

The pressure on schools is phenomenal. The heads I know spend Wednesday mornings hoping that OFSTED won't ring, only breathing a sigh of relief at lunchtime. That pressure also applies to staff.

I'm a governor at school and the budget pressure is ridiculous - our heating costs have almost quadrupled, our school is cold and draughty, and despite badgering the County, we're not getting anywhere with school improvements. The children and staff deserve to have better conditions, but we can't magic up the money - and there are loads of schools just like ours.

We are struggling to recruit across the board, I keep an eye on our County vacancies board - there is always at least 100 posts advertised. There are jobs, but living in an expensive area, means that applicants can't afford to move here.

Yes, the holidays look fabulous, but in reality most teachers don't put their feet up during the holidays. They are working, they just aren't teaching children. Just like they don't rock up to school at 8.30, and head off home at 3.30.

God no - we need better politicians too. We should pay them well and stop them from taking second jobs. We should pay teachers more and step up sacking the crap ones - but sure there's no crap teachers is there?

I agree - how many PhD-qualified people have you met? They are not the holy grail of employees by a long chalk.

I am a teacher. I think teaching has to be a vocational career- it would be disastrous if people were tempted in purely for the money. I don't need a salary that competes with other careers I could do with my first class maths degree (realistically, it will never come close!)

Personally I would rather keep my current salary but for an achievable workload, rather than being given more money for a job I literally can't do. A huge part of choosing a vocational career is the satisfaction you get from doing a good job; I need more hours, not more money, to be able to feel like I'm doing a good job.

The trouble is at the moment you dare not risk getting rid of any rubbish ones as you probably find anyone to replace them.

So teaching is all about the money?!

My god there are some stupid remarks on this thread, but this one takes the biscuit:

Teachers should not all be paid the same. The top teachers should be teaching the whole country remotely, with teaching assistants in each classroom helping out and keeping order.

Anyway... as has been pointed out, yes teachers should get a pay rise, but pay isn't really the problem. If money were to be thrown at it, it would be better to spend it on more teachers and thereby significantly reduce teachers' contact hours.

Well for a start the PP listed cleaners - that's not a 'public sector' job.
Our politicians and MP#'s are also 'public sector' workers and get more than enough pay thank you.

@dig135 You're probably going to come up with some 'reason' like disability/caring responsibilities/whatever but if your brother is that highly educated there's no reason he can't switch jobs. He can move house - or if his family are there maybe go stay elsewhere and work? Plenty of remote/hybrid jobs once you've gotten your foot in the door.

I agree with you and it is why I am not a teacher and chose a different, much more highly paid, profession that I love.

Teachers need more time to teach and to concentrate on this aspect of the job.

That sounds a bit odd but a vast amount of my time is spent on:
managing behaviour, investigating behaviour incidents that have occurred in free time or on way to or from school, dealing with social media problems, applying consequences and dealing with parents who disagree that their child should have a consequence
mental health, social and home problems
recording incidents and filling in pointless forms
inputting data so that senior managers can analyse it

The amount of prep time is pathetic. I am often sat for hours in the evening answering emails, recording incidents that happened during the day and completing planning and resources.

The job will not be attractive unless you tackle these aspects. You either raise pay to compensate or you fund it properly and stop making the job bigger in this way.

@cantkeepawayforever.
Good list.

I feel really sorry for teachers these days. The demands are endless. Short of taking the children home and tucking them into bed. You are expected to be counsellors, medical workers, carers/parents, detectives, social workers, All at the same time.

Every thread on here for even the SLIGHTEST infraction - 'tell the school'. Teachers are given increasingly higher levels of responsibility for things like delivering medicine and being responsible for the health of kids.. with a million and one different health conditions.

It's a wonder you lot get any time to actually teach!

This ridiculousness needs to stop.

Teachers should be there to teach, to educate. They shouldn't be acting as social workers. Social workers should be doing that. Kids should be going to school ready to be educated so that they are ready to leave school, start work and become adults. If they are going to school not toilet trained that's their parents fault. If they are going to school and becoming violent, fighting and biting other pupils and even teachers, that's their parents fault too. There are too many people having children but not interested in being parents, they prefer to look at their phones or take drugs.