A chara, – I am fed up with the misrepresentation and misinformation surrounding teaching allowances. Teacher’s Pet (Education Today, October 30th) is the latest example of this, quoting a mythical teacher who might earn a vast amount of money from allowances, as if this were a typical classroom teacher.
In fact what is quoted as an allowance, is the salary paid for doing a completely different job from that of teaching – that of principal in a very large school. Far from being some kind of extra bonus, it is the remuneration due for doing that extraordinarily demanding and responsible job.
With the decimation in the system of posts of responsibility in the last couple of years, the workloads of principals have increased massively (indeed, the number of people applying for these jobs is fewer now than it was 10 years ago.) Getting promotion and doing more work usually attracts more pay.
As for the other allowances – well, imagine a teacher getting credit for having an advanced qualification. One might have thought that is something that would be valued in a system that provides education.
We need to decide what we as a society want from education and what we value. At the moment teachers are demoralised, overworked and frequently criticised. If this is how we feel we can produce a world-class education system – well, fine. But it seems a funny way of motivating those charged with delivering it. – Is mise,