Novices’ pay jump to hit teachers’ salaries
By Justine Ferrari
Novice teachers in Australia have received some of the biggest pay rises in the advanced world compared with colleagues overseas.
But a report by the OECD group of industrialised nations released yesterday warns the growth has come at the expense of salaries for experienced teachers.
With the focus of Australian governments in recent years being on raising teachers’ wages to make the profession more attractive to university graduates, new primary school teachers in this country recorded the second-largest pay rise in the OECD between 1996 and 2008, salaries rising 28 per cent.
A similar rise, 29 per cent, was recorded in the starting pay for high school teachers, representing the fifth-highest increase for lower-secondary teachers and the third-highest for teachers of Year 11 and 12 students in the OECD.
The OECD’s annual Education at a Glance report, comparing educational expenditure and attainment in 31 OECD countries and eight non-OECD countries, says that on the other hand, Australian teacher salaries at the top of the scale fell in real terms for primary teachers, making it the third-lowest increase in the OECD.
Pay rates for high school teachers remained steady, with wages of lower secondary teachers recording the third-lowest growth and senior secondary teachers’ pay recording the fifth-lowest growth in the OECD.
Teachers in Australia are largely paid based on their length of service, with the starting salary high compared with other professions but the wage scale is fairly flat, with classroom teachers reaching their maximum wage in about eight years.
The OECD report also shows that spending on education around the world increased an average 43 per cent between 1995 and 2007, even in countries where student numbers remained stable or fell. In Australia, expenditure per high school student is 7 per cent higher than the OECD average but 4 per cent lower per primary student than the average.
Article from The Australian, September 8, 2010.
