Sir, – I would like to express my deepest frustration at the recent decision to suspend qualification allowances to entry level teachers (Home News, February 2nd).
As a soon-to-be qualified teacher who has invested heavily in education (honours degree, Masters and PhD), I, along with other graduates from this year’s course, will be in the curious position of being among the most qualified and at the same time the least paid of any teachers to have gone before us.
The message that this sends out is clear: education and the furthering of one’s knowledge is not important for educators! Why undertake a Masters or a PhD (or even try to attain Honours in your degree for that matter) when ultimately you will receive the same salary with a three-year pass degree? There is no incentive to further one’s knowledge and develop the mind; only empty rhetoric about the “knowledge economy” and “innovation”.
I am not asking for special treatment because of my qualifications. What I am proposing is that new teachers be treated as equals to those who have gone before them. – Yours, etc,