Teachers’ pay
by planetparker
It is a disgrace that “front-line” public servants like teachers should be included in the dishonest pay agreement announced on Monday. The Teachers’ union of Ireland (TUI) would be right to reject it. Unlike the “lower paid civil servants” for whom that wretch Blair Horan speaks, teachers already work long hours. What’s more they face increasing obstacles to doing their job through education cutbacks.
When Horan’s members overcome the tedium of another day of pen-pushing, and the clock strikes four or five they are able to leave their “tasks” unfinished and unloved for another day, to be taken up if and when they return the following day. By contrast teachers’ work never ends when they leave the school; they bring home with them not only their pupils’ homework, but other jobs, such as working out lesson plans.
And yet this pay agreement has the cheek to expect them to work an extra hour and for less pay. The result of this will be that teaching will be far less attractive as a career choice and will tend to be chosen by those who cannot get anything else which retains any social cachet. This lowering of standards will feed into the education system as a whole. We will then have a nation of dunces – just the thing really, as they won’t know how badly they’re being ripped off.
