A couple of weeks ago both of the main teachers unions announced co-ordinated strike action over pay and pensions after further cuts from the government. What I always think about when I hear of public sector strikes is; "Are they justified? Are pay, pensions and conditions so bad that industrial action is necessary or have public sector workers become so used to favourable conditions (in comparison to the private sector) that they are simply trying to protect a status quo that gives them a far better deal than private sector workers". There is a genuine concern that as it is so hard for public sector contracts to be renegotiated (again in comparison to the private sector) that when tough times come, which they have, there is a time lag between how the private and public sectors react, if the public sector reacts at all.
As it stands the starting salary for a teacher is approx £21,000. Within five to ten years this can reasonably be expected to rise to £30,000 to £36,000 depending on promotions and extra work done. As teachers are required to work 1265 hours in a year (the equivalent of a private sector worker getting 16 weeks paid holiday per year) this means that starting salaries are £16.60 per hour rising to £26.08 per hour for an average teacher with 5 to 10 years experience. Contrast this with the national average wage of £24,000 for a 38 hour week 49 weeks a year (1862 hrs) at an hourly rate of £12.89 and it starts to look pretty good.
OK, the sums above might be a bit harsh. Teachers are known to complain about marking papers at night and doing lesson plans over the holidays. These things, we are told, make it so that they don't really get all that time off. Also it is a requirement to have a tertiary level education to be a teacher in the UK i.e. you must hold a degree of some kind. This means that they should be compared to graduates when talking about wages. Fair enough, according to the ONS the average wage of someone with a degree (age 22 - 64) is £16.10 per hour. If we say Teachers work one extra hour per day marking papers during term (5 days a week, 38 weeks a year) AND we say teachers work all through Easter and Halloween schools holidays (4 weeks in total) and chuck in an extra 2 weeks for good measure, we can say our average teacher works 1683 hours a year for £33,000. That works out at £19.60 per hour. Even by this very conservative estimation, teachers earn 22% over the national average for their degree holding peers.
Teachers are well educated and fill an extremely import role in society, but looking at these figures it seems like they are doing OK to us.
All figures have been taken from the department of education's 2012 guidance on teachers pay and conditions which you can download at: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-00091-2012
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