Striking at the heart of teaching
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22 / 04 / 2008 | Author: dnorris
Striking at the heart of teaching.
If you teach abroad, - anywhere abroad, then one thing hits you right between the eyes. A teacher is a respected member of society. Everywhere you go you are introduced to people and treated as a person who is honest and has integrity. It is a good feeling. It makes you proud to be a teacher.
As someone who taught in the U.K. in the 1980’s this really does count for a lot.
Back then, I never told anyone what I did for a living. Relatives who drove trucks used to mock my spending powers. They knew that I could only afford to go out once a month on pay day. Not only was the pay low, but the image was low as well. Male teachers were depicted as wearing leather patches on the elbows of their jackets. The profession was not attractive. It was seen as the second choice for many college students.
Since then a lot has changed. Salaries have risen 15% in real terms in 10 years. Now the average salary is £31,000 for a secondary teacher and £28,000 for a primary teacher. Salaries can reach £60,000 for a classroom teacher and some super-heads earn £100,000. When you compare this to a nurse earning £23,000; a plumber earning £25,000; someone in sales earning £30,000 and chartered accountants earning £40,000, then the job of being a teacher is attractive.
Achieving a state of parity with other professions has been a long haul. It has wobbled between thought of as a job where the working week was cited as being lower than that of others and the holidays longer. (The quotes were 27 working hours a week and 13 weeks holiday, whereas in reality marking and lesson preparation took the working week to 50 hours.) Alternatively it has striven to be counted as a profession. Teachers do have to constantly re-evaluate the curriculum, attend seminars, attend conferences and undergo training updates. Most of all they have learned to work closer with parents and develop a standing in the community. Now the image is much better.
As with anything to do with salaries, the status quo is fragile.
The 3 year pay settlement offered to teachers in 2008 was made up of 2.45% in the first year, 2.3% in the second year and 2.3% in the third. This is now considered to be less than inflation and has prompted talk of a one day strike.
The last time teachers came out on strike was in 1987.
Unfortunately, strike action and teachers do not fit easily together.
Teachers are not forbidden to strike but they are, in the words of the educational writer Edward Blishen “a right soft lot.”
First of all you have to remember that teaching is a female dominated profession. Six out of seven primary teachers are women. Traditionally they have been reluctant to strike.
Secondly not all teachers are in a union.
Also, there are two unions in teaching. There is the main National Union of Teachers and the smaller National Union of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers. The latter has traditionally been more militant. (It grew out of an all male membership union in the days before equal opportunities legislation.)
The head teachers also have their own union. It is called The National Union of Head Teachers.
This mix makes voting for strike action a messy business.
I well remember working in a small church school in central London, when a one day strike was called. The staff consisted of six teachers and a head-master. Five of the teachers were in the N.U.T. They were told to take a day off school to attend a rally in Trafalgar Square. My union told me to go on strike in sympathy leaving the head no option but to close the school.
I duly went the rally in Trafalgar Square, but the other 5 teachers went into school anyway and the headmaster took my class. It was a classic example of the lack of ruthlessness that teachers have when it comes making a pay claim.
Were teacher’s intent on taking advantage of their privileged position as educators and adjudicators, they would take a leaf out of the book of Arthur Scargill and the miner’s strike in the Thatcher era.
The miner’s chief weapon was the so called set of ‘Flying Pickets.’ They were able turn up at selected pits at a moments notice, and most significantly without the prior knowledge of the police.
Translate that tactic into sporadic strikes in selected schools in the examination period and the whole ‘GCSE’ and ‘A Level’ exam programme would be in chaos.
I worked in Harare when there was a mix up in exam dates for a set of City & Guilds exams. The maths papers were issued at one school when the rest of the city was taking its English test. By 4.15 photocopies of both exams were on sale in Mbari market. That evening everyone was swatting up the answers in advance for the next days exam.
Knowing that makes it vital for teachers pay to stay in a state of equilibrium.
