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Thread: Is teaching a decent job in your country?
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[quote=APAULT,321292]In Australia we have just been told that we spend less on Education than many countries. We recently removed the Howard government which was responsible for the Federal funding: this government was against government expenditure in education and health and sought to have citizens choose 'private'. he was successful as people chose these options with the decline of the public system. In fact, using a 'postcode' formula that government diverted money away from poor and needy schools to the richer ones (remembering that pribate schools also receive government funding)! This was done by assessing determining the average income per household in each postcode. Then you look at the postcode for the students at each school to calcculate their funding. The problem is that many rich boarding schools draw students from the poorer rural areas - however, only the rich kids are sent to the expensive schools as the rest cannot afford it, and rural businesses, ie farmers,often have only moderate incomes but they are capital rich (and hardly in need of subsidy. I believe this is slowly being redressed. The current issue in the State of NSW is how teachers are allocated to schools. In the past the school principals had little say, the allocation was made according to a formula. Now it is proposed to allow teachers to apply to schools and for principles to select which staff they want. Teachers are opposed to this system (though it is -or was- the system in the UK and as a student way back, seemed to work well). I do not think teachers are as well regarded here as in China. Firstly, many students become teachers because they could not get into other courses; and related to that, the pay is well below what iindustry pays so it is not attractive to many young people; some only teach so as to be able to have the same holidays as their kids; teachers are perceived as having a cushy job; and too many parents have tended to hnd over everything about bringing up kids to the teachers and only get involved to complain. Teachers have real difficulty with discipline and discipline in the home is often very lax, and they are not permitted to apply much punishment. Add to that the child safely regulations - you cannot put your arm around a child who is crying without fear of being accused of sexual abuse - and overall, we can see there are many 'issues' in education here. I taught in the UK 35 years ago but I never taught in the main education system in Australia. There is no way I would want to teach in either country now. I'll stick to teaching in China, even with the issues I have mentioned in other threads.[/quote]
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