Bebate on Pat Kenny now about excessive teacher pay here

bridgitt

Pat Kenny has an Irish teacher ( now working in England ) on his show at the moment comparing the much longer hours, the shorter holidays, all the parent meetings out of hours , and the much less pay in England compared to what teachers get here.

Dannyboy83

Podcast here:
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_patkenny.xml

bridgitt

The Irish teacher ( Kevin O'Brien I think his name was ) who is now working in England said 1295 hours in UK, versus 735 hours here.

Plus he is expected to do 11 parent/teacher meetings in the evenings in UK - not during the daytime when parents are working.

Pay an extra twenty grand here ; fifty something euro versus thirty something sterling for someone with same qualifications / experience.

Shorter school holidays in UK. For example summer holidays do not start until mid July. After about ten minutes explaining the facts and figures, the Irish teacher in England said teachers in Ireland get paid much more to do much less.

On the other side Pat Kenny had an Irish union person on here who more or less put his hands up and said its true, but educational standards are higher here. Then a debate started about the grind industry here / how many students pay for grinds etc. Interesting.

ardmacha

Education standards are higher here, but the parent/teacher meeting thing is indefensible.

Long Onion

I didn't realise they taught Irish in England.

parsi

bridgitt wrote: »

Pat Kenny has an Irish teacher ( now working in England ) on his show at the moment comparing the much longer hours, the shorter holidays, all the parent meetings out of hours , and the much less pay in England compared to what teachers get here.

Is that you jimmmy ?

bridgitt

Long Onion wrote: »

I didn't realise they taught Irish in England.

Irish teacher means Irish born and educated.

gosplan

bridgitt wrote: »

The Irish teacher ( Kevin O'Brien I think his name was ) who is now working in England said 1295 hours in UK, versus 735 hours here.

Plus he is expected to do 11 parent/teacher meetings in the evenings in UK - not during the daytime when parents are working.

Pay an extra twenty grand here ; fifty something euro versus thirty something sterling for someone with same qualifications / experience.

Shorter school holidays in UK. For example summer holidays do not start until mid July. After about ten minutes explaining the facts and figures, the Irish teacher in England said teachers in Ireland get paid much more to do much less.

On the other side Pat Kenny had an Irish union person on here who more or less put his hands up and said its true, but educational standards are higher here. Then a debate started about the grind industry here / how many students pay for grinds etc. Interesting.

The financial difference is mostly down to the fluctuations in exchange rates. until recently 50 something Euro was 30 something Stirling.

AFAIK the parent teacher meeting is a pay related mess that goes back to the union standards. Cutbacks mean that schools won't pay teachers for evening work, Union rules mean that they can't just do it for free - which seems the obvious option. So, you have parent teacher meetings during the day which inevitibly get far lower attendence.

Mr. Presentable

bridgitt wrote: »

Pay an extra twenty grand here ; fifty something euro versus thirty something sterling for someone with same qualifications / experience.

.

Not the Ireland teachers fault the Sterling currency is so weak. A few years ago the difference would only have been 5k.

Amhran Nua

I think cost of living would be a more important factor than exchange rates. Whats the difference between a UK teacher's salary and the average industrial wage over there?

anonymous_joe

nipplenuts wrote: »

Not the Ireland teachers fault the Sterling currency is so weak. A few years ago the difference would only have been 5k.

If both were on the same salary, teh teacher in England would still be doing far more work for the same money.

Idbatterim

if you just leave aside the pay debate for a second and look at the work aspect, what the tutors is basicly saying is that Irish teachers get away with SFA compared to other countries! that lone forget about the pay for a minute is a bloody joke!

eoinbn

gosplan wrote: »

The financial difference is mostly down to the fluctuations in exchange rates. until recently 50 something Euro was 30 something Stirling.

AFAIK the parent teacher meeting is a pay related mess that goes back to the union standards. Cutbacks mean that schools won't pay teachers for evening work, Union rules mean that they can't just do it for free - which seems the obvious option. So, you have parent teacher meetings during the day which inevitibly get far lower attendence.

And why has the currency tanked? Because the british government is devaluing the pound to make exports more competitive and make it easier to balance the books- i.e just another version of a national paycut.

Heroditas

gosplan wrote: »

The financial difference is mostly down to the fluctuations in exchange rates. until recently 50 something Euro was 30 something Stirling.

Eh no it wasn't. Even when €1 was worth £0.80, €50,000 would have been worth £40,000.
Currency exchange rates do not explain all of the difference.

eoinbn

Heroditas wrote: »

Eh no it wasn't. Even when €1 was worth £0.80, €50,000 would have been worth £40,000.
Currency exchange rates do not explain all of the difference.

It was only a few years ago when a euro was only worth ~£0.65, so they do have a point. However, as I said above, there are reasons why their currency has devalued and it will lead to inflation/higher interest rates.

Long Onion

bridgitt wrote: »

Irish teacher means Irish born and educated.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh!;)

Heroditas

eoinbn wrote: »

It was only a few years ago when a euro was only worth ~£0.65, so they do have a point. However, as I said above, there are reasons why their currency has devalued and it will lead to inflation/higher interest rates.

Oh I agree regarding the devaluation.
However, for someone to base their argument on exchange rates is overly simplistic.
It's actually startling to look at the devaluation of £ since the beginning of 2007. It took a big fall between June 2007 and March 2008 before levelling off and then finally falling off a cliff last November/December. :eek:

mike kelly

eoinbn wrote: »

And why has the currency tanked? Because the british government is devaluing the pound to make exports more competitive and make it easier to balance the books- i.e just another version of a national paycut.

something no longer available to us

GroundHog

ardmacha wrote: »

Education standards are higher here, but the parent/teacher meeting thing is indefensible.

I'm not actually sure the education standard is higher, it strikes me that the learn by rote system is more prevalent here. I do think that the "highly educated" workforce argument was always a bit of a fallacy, and it was tax etc that drew FDI here.

Too many examples of kids being in their teens before dyslexia etc is diagnosed.

I think we can all remember our own school days, and the good and bad teachers. The fact that irish teachers are promoted by seniority rather than ability, speaks badly for the whole system.:cool:

AlekSmart

I didn't realise they taught Irish in England.

Posted to demonstrate just how "Knowledge Based" Irelands economy really is !!!!!!

ei.sdraob

someone should debate Pat Kenny's excessive pay as well

P. Breathnach

ei.sdraob wrote: »

someone should debate Pat Kenny's excessive pay as well

Not at all. He is in the private sector.

Absurdum

Maybe next week they can "bebate" how electricians in Ireland are paid way more than they are paid in England. Or is that not juicy enough? How about the average earnings of a shoe shiner in Uzbekistan? It's outrageous how we're being ripped off for that here!!!! I'm gonna gather a posse and fix 'em good.

herya

bridgitt wrote: »

The Irish teacher ( Kevin O'Brien I think his name was ) who is now working in England said 1295 hours in UK, versus 735 hours here.

735 hours, that's 91 standard working days in a year. Nice! Especially with grinds on days off.

Hotblack Desiato

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Not at all. He is in the private sector.

Wrong. RTE derives a large part of its funding from a tax.

jimmmy

Absurdum wrote: »

Maybe next week they can "bebate" how electricians in Ireland are paid way more than they are paid in England. Or is that not juicy enough? How about the average earnings of a shoe shiner in Uzbekistan?

We / the government exchequer are not employing / paying for 330,000 electricians / shoe shiners out of the public purse, at wages 40% above the EC average. Also, if you do not want to employ an electrician or shoeshiner, you do not have to do so. They can go without work / decent income ( as some are ). You can do the work yourself or get an shoe shine person from another EC country. Unfortunately we have to pay the teachers if they do a good job or not, little and all as they work ( 735 hours was quoted on the radio by the teacher ) , and when they retire we give them a year and a halves salary tax free, and 50% of finishing salary per year.

irish_bob

jimmmy wrote: »

We / the government exchequer are not employing / paying for 330,000 electricians / shoe shiners out of the public purse, at wages 40% above the EC average. Also, if you do not want to employ an electrician or shoeshiner, you do not have to do so. They can go without work / decent income ( as some are ). You can do the work yourself or get an shoe shine person from another EC country. Unfortunately we have to pay the teachers if they do a good job or not, little and all as they work ( 735 hours was quoted on the radio by the teacher ) , and when they retire we give them a year and a halves salary tax free, and 50% of finishing salary per year.

welcome back james

jimmmy

thanks irish bob. Good to be back.

population

My sister teaches in the UK and used to teach here and she echoes what the teacher said on Pat Kenny. It is longer hours for less money, though she does not think the hours worked or indeed the pay rates are unfair, but she said when you take the league table/grade inflation debacle into the situation, the kids are worse off, often leaving school with a decent mark in a subject like English and pretty much having a childlike ability to spell/read/write.

jimmmy

population wrote: »

My sister teaches in the UK and used to teach here and she echoes what the teacher said on Pat Kenny.

I think everyone acknowledges that teachers here are underworked and overpaid all right. If we got better value from our teachers then our illiteracy rates may be better ( some claim up to 20% in Ireland cannot read properly ). And we would have some universities in the top league worldwide ( we do not ). And we would produce kids who can work things out / solve problems in a technological age, rather than recite lists in exams. Oh, and we may produce kids who could communicate with our continental friends who are so good to lend us 25 billion per year ( the ECB ). We could beg in german instead of English.

#15

population wrote: »

she said when you take the league table/grade inflation debacle into the situation, the kids are worse off, often leaving school with a decent mark in a subject like English and pretty much having a childlike ability to spell/read/write.

Jimmy, welcome back. I see you forgot to quote all of the above post.

Look at that, English kids are worse off.
Irish teachers do a better job in less time. No wonder we earn more.