Teachers?

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Mr. Stupid
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According to this report in the Irish times 1 in 4 teaches are on over 65K and they are suggesting to vote against a deal with safeguards pay for teachers under 65K.

I didn't think any teacher earn above 65K and I find it hard to believe 1 /4 do.

Is this correct?
estuarine
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To answer your question, principals and deputy principals generally would be earning above 65k because they receive substantial managerial allowances based on the number of pupils in the school.

Moving down the scale, teachers who have been promoted to middle-management (year heads etc...) would often be above that point, but it depends on their basic salary which is based on an incremental scale. Year heads are usually senior teachers so it's safe to assume that a reasonable proportion of them would be at or above that level of earnings.

Moving to the rank and file, it would take upwards of 20 years in the classroom based on the pay and allowances paid prior to 2011 for an ordinary classroom teacher to reach that level of earnings. It would be much harder for new entrants hit by the pay cut and moratorium on allowances to aspire to that amount of money at the moment.

May I say that the real debate around Croke Park is the following. About a third of second-level teachers are not in permanent jobs. Often, they do not have full hours. Up to now, they have brought their earnings up through covering for absent teachers (supervision & substitution). I really need to get across that most daily absences have nothing to do with illness - they involve teachers away on trips with classes, sports fixtures etc... The proposals on S&S mean that this additional paid work will be much scarcer in the future. Therefore - and this is key - non-permanent teachers not on full hours stand to lose much more than the headline figures that are out there. The premise is always that teachers have permanent, full-time jobs. This is really not an accurate description of the position and it's hard to see how those people could vote for what is proposed. A straight 5pc cut across the board would actually be more equitable, though I'm not saying I'd like it either:)
Mr. Stupid
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It would be interesting to see the percentage of non permanent versus permanent teachers in this state compared to other countries. Because it seems very high. Personally, I think it would make sense to encourage teachers to go and work in the private sector every few years and then come back. The days of a job for life are over and I think that's what's killing a lot of the public / semi states.
estuarine
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And what exactly would you suggest an English and Music teacher would do in the wonderful private sector? Or a History and Geography teacher? That's about as vacuous as people who think we should send young offenders to the army - as if we'd like this State defended by thugs.

Teachers are professional educators. It's an important job and something that every civilised country knows has to be done. Moreover, you underestimate the numbers of teachers who do actually take career breaks to try something else. If anything, it infuriates parents when their children are being taught by subs covering for career breaks, maternity leave etc. particularly in exam years.

You conveniently miss - or avoid -the point as so many do: that the idea that teachers are minting it overall is a load of nonsense and that there are massive inequalities between the top and the bottom. I went to a lot of trouble to give a factual answer to your question only to discover that it was a ruse to engage in some s*it stirring.
Mr. Stupid
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estuarine wrote:And what exactly would you suggest an English and Music teacher would do in the wonderful private sector? Or a History and Geography teacher? That's about as vacuous as people who think we should send young offenders to the army - as if we'd like this State defended by thugs.
Plenty. Retail, journalism, admin, translation, research, lab work. If teachers are unfit to work in the private sector well then why are they in charge of training people to be ready for it?

Similarly, if people from the private sector were forced to do some teaching maybe then they'd stop moaning about teachers.
Moreover, you underestimate the numbers of teachers who do actually take career breaks to try something else.
How do you know what I estimate it as?
You conveniently miss - or avoid -the point as so many do: that the idea that teachers are minting it overall is a load of nonsense and that there are massive inequalities between the top and the bottom. I went to a lot of trouble to give a factual answer to your question only to discover that it was a ruse to engage in some s*it stirring.
I agree there are inequalities between top and bottom. I'd just like some exact figures. The only one I have seen is that 1/4 in teachers are over 65K a year which implies 3/4 are not. I struggle to believe so many are that high a salary - hence this thread.
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Ken
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I wouldn't see €65k as excessive for someone with a third level qualification and over 20 years service.
Regards,

Ken.
Mr. Stupid
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Ken wrote:I wouldn't see €65k as excessive for someone with a third level qualification and over 20 years service.
But there is no need to be any more productive at the job and if you factor in the pension you are up to 90. Then there is the holidays and job security. I picked the wrong job.
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Vlad the Impaler
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I don't have a problem with teachers wages. Anyone who went to college could have been one but chose not to. Fact is it's a good job in a recession and maybe not so appealing in a boom. Performance is rarely measured in the public sector so I'm not going to single out teachers either - and I'm fed up with private vs public debates tbh (I'm private).

The only thing I find hard to take is their union conferences. Some teachers I know don't like the way it makes them look either.
Donabate Hatter
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As I always say when people start whinging about teachers, 'If its such a well paid cushy number, why didn't you do it'

And no, I'm not a teacher and nor are any of my family.

Donabate Hatter
jack white
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In general I have no problem with teachers. Most of them do a good job and by and large we have a good education system.

But on TV yesterday at their union conferences many of them looked like idiots. They were behaving in a way that would get a six year old into trouble in a classroom.

And when you look at the deal they're complaining about it's difficult to see why they're complaining at all. I heard one guy on the radio saying he was going to have to do an extra hundred hours per year in order to stay on the same wages. In other words, at a time when many Public Servants are going to lose much of their premium pay all this guy has to do is an extra hour and three quarters per week in order to retain his current take home pay. In the overall context of the public service deal it's a hell of a good result for teachers. And yet some of them act like a bunch of morons when the minister, who they invited themselves, addresses their conference.

It was a PR disaster for teachers. It certainly won't help the reputation of the teaching profession for so many of them to appear on TV acting stupidly.
estuarine
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Jack, I don't have a difficulty with much of what you say but let me come to your substantive point.

Did you read my final paragraph or, with respect, are you another of these people who chooses to ignore the actual facts when they don't suit your argument?

Firstly, full-time teachers who up to now have opted into the supervision and substitution arrangements get about €1800 gross for that commitment. The proposal is that from next year they will not only lose that money but every teacher will have to deliver more of those hours for nothing. So fact #1: many teachers' pay will be cut.

Secondly, and it really is time people got their heads around this: about a third of secondary teachers - most of them young - do not have secure employment and many, if not most, of those do not have full hours. In addition to opting into the S&S scheme on a pro-rata basis as outlined above, they can boost their earnings through paid substitution which most of them have managed to do up to now. Therefore, many low paid teachers are facing a very large cut - basically a double cut - in earnings as a result of this Croke Park proposal. It is simply unacceptable for a lie to be propagated ad nauseum that only teachers earning over 65k will face a pay cut. It is not true and to believe it is about as useful as believing in the tooth fairy.
BlueMagic
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I am not a teacher, but I have been researching this as part of my work. The best info on the Irish education system is from the OECD some highlights are:
Irish teachers earn about 18% less than the average for graduates, even though they mainly have post graduate qualifications.
Irish teachers work some of the longest hours in OECD in primary schools 918 hours per year vs OECD ave of 782 hours (this is before croke park extra hours), all Irish teachers work more than OECD ave.
Irish class sizes are above the OECD ave, in primary school 19.8 students per teachers vs OECD average of 14.4
You can look this up on
http://www.oecd.org/edu/EAG2012%20-%20K ... reland.pdf

Ireland has fallen from 5th in literacy rankings in 2000 to 21st in 2009.
If you look at the best in Europe, Finland, they have smaller classes, better paid teachers and much shorter hours.
The simple answer is the problem is not the teachers, the problem is that we have turned our education system into a baby sitting service.
Mr. Stupid
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Could you provide evidence for Finish teachers being better paid?

And that argument - "why don't you just do it?" is a load of bull. Firstly every generation owes it to not throw a pile of debt on to the next generation. Our budget is in deficit of 14 billion and that means we borrow that money and pay interest on it. We have to cut the cloth and can't just dump debt on debt on more debt.

Secondly, no-one absolutely no-one can be a teacher and earn 65K + pension. You have to do it for 20 years before you are on that salary. In fact, you'd have to turn back the clock to 20 years ago as the pay grades for new teachers are now lower.

Yes new teachers are underpaid. That is a huge flaw with the system. You underpay one employee and you overpay another. And then tell everyone who moans about old teachers' pay to just be a teacher? But, they can't be an old teacher! They can only be a new teacher.

It's a major scam and anyone who doesn't see it should buy some FF toilet paper and change how many times they wipe their ass.
BlueMagic
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Finnish teachers are paid between 11% less than the graduate average in Finland all the way up to 10% more than the graduate average, while working upto 300 hours less than Irish primary teachers each year. The ave class size in Finland in primary is 11.
http://www.oecd.org/edu/EAG2012%20-%20K ... inland.pdf
Mr. Stupid
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BlueMagic wrote:Finnish teachers are paid between 11% less than the graduate average in Finland all the way up to 10% more than the graduate average, while working upto 300 hours less than Irish primary teachers each year. The ave class size in Finland in primary is 11.
http://www.oecd.org/edu/EAG2012%20-%20K ... inland.pdf
I am not sure how that supports your point.

Here's one which states:
"average salary for primary education teachers with 15 years experience in Finland is about $37,500" that's 29,314 Euro.

One in four Irish teachers are on more than double that!

According to Ronan Lyons: "In Finland, prices are just 2% below Irish prices, but an Irish teacher enjoys a wage that is 54% higher than a Finnish counterpart." (Note that was 2009 and there have been some cuts mainly to new teachers since then).

And here is a graph from the Gaurdian 2012 which also shows Ireland very high for average pay. But the real skew in Ireland is not average pay it is the difference between an old teacher and a new teacher.
BlueMagic
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The same article says that Doctors earn $70k in Finland. You cannot compare absolute figures when comparing international pay rates. That is why the OECD uses the ave wage of a person with tertiary education, that we you dont get caught up with Tax, local prices, pensions and other issues that are difficult to adjust for, you simply compare them to their peers.
The point here is not how much we pay our teachers, although it is part of it, the point is we are building an education system aimed at keeping children in large classes for long hours and it does not work. With 19 children per teacher the best we can hope for is crowd control, with 11 per teacher we can have learning.
Mr. Stupid
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BlueMagic wrote:The same article says that Doctors earn $70k in Finland. You cannot compare absolute figures when comparing international pay rates. That is why the OECD uses the ave wage of a person with tertiary education, that we you dont get caught up with Tax, local prices, pensions and other issues that are difficult to adjust for, you simply compare them to their peers.
Absolutely you can. We are using the same currency, we are in the same economic zone and we pay the same prices for Oil and everything else we import. Doctors and Teachers are both over paid in this country. In fact, we are nearly all over paid.

The entire economy is unsustainable. 14 billion in deficit every year and only a portion of that is because banking crisis. The rest we borrow. Which means we lump debt on debt. Then there's interest on debt which is not fair to the next generation.
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