Teaching deserves better salaries, not so sure teachers do
And so, the strike begins.
I would hate to be the person who has to decide on teachers’ salaries. Every time you sign off on a salary you have to know that, at the bottom of the scale, you are saying that someone with a four-year degree should get a gross salary under R13600 a month.
That says a lot about how we value education. Not highly.
On the other hand, far too many teachers do themselves and the profession a disservice by behaving in ways that are completely unprofessional, from not being in class to playing Sugar Daddy to teenage girls. The citizen in me says, “Why the hell should my taxes be used to push up the salaries of people who act like idiots.”
There are loads of people who have great education and who work in all sorts of service positions for similarly low salaries without striking at the drop of a hat.
The sad thing, is, the low salaries teaching receives allows a vicious cycle – teachers aren’t paid well and too often behave appallingly and so top matriculants, or even those with a solid matric do not value the profession. They go into banking and retail instead.
If we want to create a society with altrustic values – and why wouldn’t we? – then teachers have to be better valued. But, if teachers want to be better valued they should behave like professionals.
The problem is, if they do behave like true professionals and don’t go on strike every year, will they get the salaries teaching (note the word, it’s used on purpose) deserves?
Somewhere something has to give.
August 18th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
The American philosopher, Michael Walzer, captured my long experience of teaching in good schools. “For those with a sense of vocation, the first reward is in the performance itself, in the knowledge that a job is being well done and that they are known for doing it well. Then there are the pleasures of collegiality with others for whom aesthetic taste, moral values, responsibility, initiative and co-operation are important values.”
“Teaching is involved with the intellectual and emotional development of children, but also of teachers themselves. It is from this that the inherent satisfaction derives. This is why there is, in the best, the desire to teach, to serve society and to be part of a worthy profesion.”
“Status comes to those in schools with staffrooms known for an ethical code, a social bond, a pattern of mutual recognition and self-discipline. Intellectual curiosity, training of some rigour and knowledge of intellectual disciplines are features of teachers gathering in such places.”
Despite having to live what Dr Elwyn Davies told me would be a life of “genteel poverty”, I have been fulfilled and have no regrets about my choice of career.
August 26th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I have been so fortunate in my school days to be taught by the teacher who happened to be infulential union leader by then. Quite interestingly, he never dumped us in class to picket in streets in the name of better salary. Teaching is indeed noble profession, unfortunatley recently it has become the haven of quacks and charlatans who value nothing, but money. No ethical values upheld, the girl pupils just seen as sexual partners to exploited. It saddens my heart to see the future of younger generation being politically compromised in the name of constituitional rights. The dark side of our rights is, it tends to make people to be hypocrites and self centred. Ruthlessness seems to be the bitter and sour outcomes of exercising our rights, as our relatives have been left unattended in health centres.All in the name of better life, we subject our sick and suffering patients in hospitals to such ill-treatment, negligence as our nurses embark on strike.This reminds me of Ken Saro Wiwa, when he said “The worse sin on earth is failure to think”. Unfortuantely, he died a terrible death as stupidity and foolishness drove the despot to have him hanged to death. Again the ordinary scholars and sick people are being sacrificed in the fight for better wage, too many Sani Abachas amongst ourselves.