Pro:The role of education in a society is of crucial importance – in order tohave a civil and organised society; citizens need knowledge and the abilityto think critically. They also need basic literacy and numeracy, and someknowledge of the world around them. This is not disputed, however, the needfor teachers who receive high salaries and for 20 percent of the year areon holidays is rather questionable. One needs look no further than to theforum section of the Sydney Morning Herald to find the truth – thatteachers are overpaid and under worked. 1Teachers enjoy an excellent remuneration package. One needs to search hardto find a career that, in the first year after graduation, can be paid upto 45 thousand dollars.
2 Compared to the starting salaries in othercareers, teachers can be seen as rather generously compensated. Accordingto figures quoted in the Good Education guide, the average starting salary,a graduate entry teacher is paid, on average, $35 5743 and have some ofthe lowest course costs. This is compared to such courses as law andarchitecture, which have nearly double the course costs, an extra year ofstudy and can only expect an extra two thousand dollars per annum. In thecase of architecture, the average graduate can only expect a startingsalary of $29000. 4 With all this in mind, teachers can barely claim to bepoorly paid at all.
Teachers also claim to be overworked. However, this is a fallacy for tworeasons. Firstly, teachers enjoy 12 weeks of holiday time a year. This isin direct contrast with the average employee, who receives a minimum offour weeks a year.
Coupled with this is the fact that teachers enjoy allthe public holidays away from the classroom. Their working hours are,essentially, between the hours of 8am to 3:30pm weekdays. This isdifferent to the normal worker who has 8-hour days, and can work every dayof the week. Teachers do have a fantastic deal! 5A teacher’s job is not overly arduous, nor is it particularly dangerous. Tohighlight this fact, one needs only look to those career choices, which aremore dangerous, but much lower paid. According to Work Cover WesternAustralia, the teaching profession for males only lost 9.
1 hours permillion working hours due to illness or injury. This figure is onlybettered by the insurance sector. For comparison, the manufacturingindustry, the worst industry as far as lost time for injury and disease isconcerned, lost 24. 3 hours per million.
In the case of women, the educatingprofession only lost 6. 3 hours due to injury or illness. 6As illustrated previously, teachers, compared to the rest of society, areoverpaid and under worked. They are paid extremely well once they havegraduated and receive much better holidays.
They also have a safe andsecure workplace compared to other lesser-paid workers. This safety showsthat their career is not overly dangerous and can show teachers areoverpaid, or on the contrary, that other workers need to be paid moredanger money. Teachers are overpaid and under worked.———————–1 http://smh.com.au/yoursay/2003/09/17/ accessed 01/05/20042http://education.qld.gov.au/hr/recruitment/administrative/docs/classroom_teachers accessed 01/05/20043 http://www.thegoodguides.com.au/fostable.cfm?coursetype=undergraduateaccessed 01/05/20044 http://www.thegoodguides.com.au/fostable.cfm?coursetype=undergraduateaccessed 01/05/20045/http://education.qld.gov.au/hr/recruitment/administrative/docs/classroom_teachers accessed 01/05/2004 and Suncorp Certified Agreement, page 96 All figures from WorkCover WA Injury Statistics (2002)http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/pagebin/injrstat0311.pdf accessed01/05/2004 .
