Teach First ‘Teachers’ on the Cheap
EdReform, EduBusiness, In The News, Internships, Schools, Teach First Monday, January 10th, 2011
A little investigating goes a long way, and we didn’t have to look very far to discover paltry salaries for Teach First unqualified non-teachers.
On the website of this ‘charity’, a very detailed breakdown is given of how young graduates will be exploited:
“Unqualified Teachers pay scale from 1 September 2010
Minimum Annual Salary England & Wales (exc. London) – £17,657
Annual Salary inner London area – £21,731
Annual Salary outer London area – £20,629
Annual Salary Fringe area
In the second year, participants are paid varying amounts dependent on the salary that our participating schools pay their Newly Qualified Teacher’s and the level of extra responsibility a teacher takes on. The minimum this will be is as follows, based on salaries for 2010.
Main Pay Scale -Teachers Pay from 1 September 2010:
Minimum Annual Salary England & Wales (exc. London) – £21,588
Annual Salary inner London area – £27,000
Annual Salary outer London area – £25,117
Annual Salary Fringe area – £22,626
Source: School Teachers Review Body”
There is then a huge incentive (at least a few thousand pounds per newbie) for schools to employ TF’s unqualified non-teachers instead of NQTs.
And the oxymoron ‘unqualified teacher’ raised a few eyebrows. If they’re not teachers, what are they doing in the classroom apart from saving schools in ‘challenging areas’ a bit of cash?
Recent UK graduates on the premise that they are doing something worthwhile, even if they’re unqualified and don’t compare to those who’ve completed proper PGCEs or GTPs, are paid many thousands of pounds less per year.
Just like those dodgy unpaid internships so beloved by media companies and investment banks, young talented people are told that this is how the real world works and they’ve no choice with only those with rich/understanding parents able to capitalise on their ‘chance’.
This is a clear demonstration that Me First/Teach Last is purely about cutting costs. For what is the biggest cost facing any organisation? Wages. And faced with all-out war with the unions – who remain oddly silent – Government mandarins think getting in McKinsey’s TF to do its dirty work will fall under the radar.
So two-fingers to hard-fought union agreements and up-yours to a fair society? We’ll see about that.
What utter nonsense. Yes, TF pays graduates less than most schemes for the first 12 months, but after that the salary is comparable to many private sector schemes (I should know, having spent four years on a private sector graduate scheme before beginning Teach First this year).
The first year salary is low, but then I only teach 15 hours compared to the 21 hours that my colleagues teach. The fact that I am doing a PGCE entitles me to the financial support available to full-time students too. If I was taking the traditional PGCE route I would have *much* less disposable income, living off a student loan/small bursary.
I may be relatively cheap for the school to employ (for one year of a guaranteed two-year employment), but the amount of support I require as an unqualified teacher from senior staff, plus days off to attend training, compensates somewhat for that.
Next year I will be an NQT on a decent salary, with the advantage of having already taught for a full year in my school. Personally I think TF is a superb way of training teachers, as well as delivering keen, quick-learning graduates to schools that often struggle to retain staff.