Pay teachers more for the tough work they do…
Article Review – “It doesn’t take best and brightest – or an inquiry – to answer this teaching problem”
In an opinion piece in the The New Daily, A L Jones reviews the latest federal government inquiry into teaching – launched by Alan Tudge, Minister for Education and Youth – looking to attract best and brightest students to teaching in order to combat the fall in ‘proficient literacy’ of Australian 15-year-olds, amongst other measures. The Grattan Institute argues that plenty of high achievers would teach if the pay was better.
The author acknowledges that some teachers are ‘Not the sharpest knife in the drawer’ but if governments continue to not choose teachers wisely and pay them accordingly, they are perpetuating the problem.
Jones says:
“No Australian government has been willing to pay teachers enough for the tough work they do. It’s not just the penny-pinching conservatives; some of the worst educational decisions have been made by Labor governments.”
“Because, no matter how skilled, no person standing in front of 25 students can tell which ones, if any, are actually learning anything. No single teacher can possibly look after the individual needs of 25 students.”
“To the second point, namely teachers’ pay, having been an educator myself, I know that teaching is the hardest job in the world apart from parenting.
Like parenting, it also carries the stigma of having been seen as ‘women’s work’, meaning, anyone can do it; it’s a ‘vocation’ not a profession; women were born to help; so don’t expect remuneration commensurate with your effort.”
The IEU agrees that teachers are underpaid and class sizes should be smaller!
We do not need another review!
The history of reviews into school education in Australia is not one of credit. There have been many, many reviews in the last three decades, volumes of recommendations, repeated reviews of similar subject matter and a track-record of little evidence of implementation of major and significant recommendations.
We continue to argue for appropriate wages and workload conditions in our enterprise agreements.
Join the fight, join your union – https://ieusa.org.au/join-the-ieusa/
A L Jones, PhD, is a psychologist, writer and educator with academic specialties in educational and gender psychology. Jones is a series editor at Lexington Books and spent 15 years as a teacher educator at Deakin University.
This article appeared in The New Daily, Thursday 22 April.
Read the full article – click here