Teachers and Lecturers: Deserving of a Pay Rise or a Pay Cut?

The dispute over increasing lecturers and schoolteachers pay continues, but if they are to have their wage maximised which teaching staff would be most deserving of it?

Originally it was school teachers who were to strike so were lecturers right to jump on the bandwagon or should they have just left it to the teachers? School teachers currently earn more than college lecturers, though neither group seem to think that striking will be the most effective form of protest.

Schoolteacher Ian Heslop doesn’t think that it will achieve much “If the government had the money (to give a pay rise) they would probably give it to us and besides they would have to take spending out of another area that the government funds.”

While College lecturer Gene Stoddart sees it as something which should only be used tactically “Some people in trade unions think that striking is some kind of philosophical standpoint- standing shoulder to shoulder, I see it purely as pragmatic. I’m in a trade union as I know it’s stronger than fighting as an individual.”

But with the notorious argument of teachers and lecturers only working short hours in a day and having long holidays how can they justify receiving such a considerable rise?

“People should just be paid for having skills, experience and responsibility and in return should get total professionalism- I work very, very hard and am worth a lot more than I’m getting paid.” says Gene.

But should there be a scale on which teachers get paid depending on the course that they teach? Most FE colleges teach many rudimentary courses and there are to be courses introduced in secondary schools which won’t be following an academic route.

Ian Heslop disagrees “We should all earn the same, we all do the same job and it’s all very important. We all just have slightly different skills and qualities needed.”

But how do the students feel about time being taken out of their education at such a valuable time? Dan Jones, 17, thinks that they don’t work hard enough to expect a rise “They’re affecting us and our education by taking the day off, we have teachers who can’t be bothered which takes your whole learning ethic out of it and when they can’t be bothered then no-one else can be bothered.”

Lecturers and teachers would no doubt dispute this, they work long unpaid hours, marking and planning the next lessons, this also overlaps past term time. Though some staff seem concerned with the timing of the strike as they feel they are affecting the children’s education at an extremely valuable time, just before exams.

Well it is still looking unclear as to whether they will receive an increase in their wage but it is clear that both sides feel that they deserve it, even if the students don’t think they do.