Teachers angry over pay and conditions, says survey

Tuesday 07 June 2016

Nearly one in five Jersey classroom teachers are not satisfied with their current role, a survey of the Island’s staff has revealed - and just over a third didn't think their school was a good place to work.

The survey, of the Island’s 1,000 teachers, also showed that 59% said they strongly disagreed with the statement ‘I am satisfied with how much my salary and rewards have increased over the last 12 months’ following a controversial pay battle in the last year between public sector unions and ministers.

Only 63% of classroom teachers would recommend their school as a good place to work and just 75% of teaching employees in the non fee-paying sector said they would recommend their school to friends.

The teachers’ survey was conducted by the Education Department last September, with 45% of those in employment responding, a total of around 500 teachers.

Teachers were asked to respond to a variety of questions designed to give an insight into the ethos, leadership and management with Jersey’s fee-paying and non fee-paying primary and secondary schools.

Overall satisfaction with the job varied enormously as 97% of all those surveyed in senior leadership employment were satisfied with their current role. However, amongst classroom teachers a total of 17%, nearly one in five, were either not at all satisfied, or not very satisfied. 

When asked what teachers felt were their most unnecessary and burdensome tasks, 31% responded with basic administration, while ‘pressure to get results’ was given as the aspect of the job that teachers are most concerned about.

Health-wise, in the last 12 months before the survey was conducted, teachers described their general health as good (41%) or very good (27%), with only five per cent describing it as bad.

Only four per cent of teachers rated pupils’ behaviour as poor, while more than four-fifths (84%) identified a pupil’s home life/parental guidance as a main cause of poor behaviour at school.

A total of 28% of all teachers said they had been subjected to verbal abuse by a pupil in the 12 months leading up to the survey, while 24% said they had been verbally abused by a parent. A further one in ten teachers reported that they had been threatened by physical violence by a pupil (12%), while seven percent said they had been physically assaulted by a pupil.

But the figures for verbal and physical abuse differed considerably by school sector, with nearly half, (45%) in the States non fee-paying sector saying they had been verbally abused by a pupil in the past year, compared to just three per cent in the non-provided sector. 

When it comes to pay and pensions, teachers are generally an unhappy lot. While 59% said they strongly disagreed with the statement ‘I am satisfied with how much my salary and rewards have increased in the last 12 months,’ another 21% slightly disagreed with that statement and only five per cent strongly agreed with it.

Pay for newly-qualified teachers could be cut as part of a package of cost-cutting measures due to be announced later this month, according to teaching unions.

Ministers have kept the Medium Term Financial Plan largely under wraps, but local NUT President Robert Ward yesterday warned that teachers in Jersey had already seen cuts in pay and an extra pay cut for newly-qualified teachers would be a step too far.

The new Medium Term Financial Plan is due to be published at the end of this month, laying out plans for cuts and savings, to be imposed by 2019.