I’d suggest the low pay is part of why it’s not seen as prestigious. Pay teachers like we pay IT workers and I bet that attitude would change within a generation.
But it also needs to be competitive; basically only the best get the privilege of teaching the next generation. The qualifications for teachers need to be much higher than they are now; high salary and high entry requirements, with teacher aids to help that require a lower (same as today) qualifications. Similar to the medical system model where there is a surgeon with a bunch of highly qualified helpers.
You couldn’t make me go there just for the money. No way am I going to study 3 years just to become a teacher, when I can teach in a world class city like Moscow with only a minor qualification that takes 1 month to get.
Yes one often missed thing is that teaching used to be a career with a lot more men, to the point you could have called it male dominated.
If we doubled teachers salaries, would we start to see a swing back towards more men?
Maybe; but teaching in NZ is not seen as a prestigious career path.
You would need to up the pay and tackle the view of teachers in wider society.
I’d suggest the low pay is part of why it’s not seen as prestigious. Pay teachers like we pay IT workers and I bet that attitude would change within a generation.
I agree; it would fix a bunch of issues.
But it also needs to be competitive; basically only the best get the privilege of teaching the next generation. The qualifications for teachers need to be much higher than they are now; high salary and high entry requirements, with teacher aids to help that require a lower (same as today) qualifications. Similar to the medical system model where there is a surgeon with a bunch of highly qualified helpers.
You couldn’t make me go there just for the money. No way am I going to study 3 years just to become a teacher, when I can teach in a world class city like Moscow with only a minor qualification that takes 1 month to get.