More Pain Free Cuts
As public bodies struggle to find ways of defending front-line services - I think it's hight time that public spirited individuals - such as myself - step forward with practical suggestions.
So I'm happy to propose this mad practice - whereby older, retired teachers are paid more than their younger colleagues for doing 'supply' work in Scottish schools - should be scrapped.
Now I do realise that this will impact on older, retired teachers - but they've had a lifetime on the public payroll - and have been pensioned off.
So why should they even be invited to do supply work - at inflated prices - in the first place?
Here's what I said on the blog site in March - the truth about public spending is that very often - you don't know the half of what's going on.
Supply and Demand (29 March 2011)
Another row is brewing amongst Scotland's teachers - or some of them at least.
Apparently the SSTA (Scottish Secondary Teachers Association) is threatening industrial action - in some crazy dispute over supply teachers.
The employers want to pay supply teachers - who come back into schools through a revolving door after retiring - the same rate of pay as newly qualiified teachers.
So everyone is treated the same - seems like common sense and fair play all round - if you ask me.
Now everyone knows a teacher or two - and the ones that I know say the practice of bringing teachers out of retirement to do supply work - needs to be stamped out.
The people have retired for goodness sake - they've got their tax free lump sum and their pensions - why don't they just step aside and give the younger generation a chance?
Even more scandalous is that these retired teachers should be paid more than their younger colleagues - for doing exactly the same job.
Any my teacher friends tell me that often these retired teachers often don't do any teaching - they just 'supervise' the class - with Geography teachers taking English classes and vice versa.
So why would anyone pay top dollar for that - and why would the union defend two different rates of pay for the same job?
The solution is to pay the proper rate for the job - give first refusal to younger teachers - and don't cave into demands to treat retired teachers more favourably than their colleagues.
So I'm happy to propose this mad practice - whereby older, retired teachers are paid more than their younger colleagues for doing 'supply' work in Scottish schools - should be scrapped.
Now I do realise that this will impact on older, retired teachers - but they've had a lifetime on the public payroll - and have been pensioned off.
So why should they even be invited to do supply work - at inflated prices - in the first place?
Here's what I said on the blog site in March - the truth about public spending is that very often - you don't know the half of what's going on.
Supply and Demand (29 March 2011)
Another row is brewing amongst Scotland's teachers - or some of them at least.
Apparently the SSTA (Scottish Secondary Teachers Association) is threatening industrial action - in some crazy dispute over supply teachers.
The employers want to pay supply teachers - who come back into schools through a revolving door after retiring - the same rate of pay as newly qualiified teachers.
So everyone is treated the same - seems like common sense and fair play all round - if you ask me.
Now everyone knows a teacher or two - and the ones that I know say the practice of bringing teachers out of retirement to do supply work - needs to be stamped out.
The people have retired for goodness sake - they've got their tax free lump sum and their pensions - why don't they just step aside and give the younger generation a chance?
Even more scandalous is that these retired teachers should be paid more than their younger colleagues - for doing exactly the same job.
Any my teacher friends tell me that often these retired teachers often don't do any teaching - they just 'supervise' the class - with Geography teachers taking English classes and vice versa.
So why would anyone pay top dollar for that - and why would the union defend two different rates of pay for the same job?
The solution is to pay the proper rate for the job - give first refusal to younger teachers - and don't cave into demands to treat retired teachers more favourably than their colleagues.
