Why do teachers get automatic pay rises based of years of service?

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actually, I should have clarified, I was thinking of streaming in senior cycle. So, in my school, the junior years were all mixed, but for 5th/6th, the core subjects (Maths/English/Irish) were streamed (based on JC results, Transition year results, and then the Xmas/Summer 5th year results) with the classes being streamed 3 times (start of 1st year, after xmas and again at the start of 6th year) incentivising students to improve. As for non-core subjects, there was some element of "natural streaming" with the stronger kids typically choosing applied maths, physics, chem etc. I think it worked well as it did prevent the ghettoising of students etc and everyone did mix very well (between junior years and non-core subjects in senior years). But it also enabled teachers (and students) to move at a different pace when it came to the LC for the core subjects. And rather than ghettoising those in the lower graded classes, it helped act as a wake-up call for those students/parents who assumed they could coast their way to a high grade (such as me 😉).

Your post's been viewed 1,500 times and ONE person has felt it worthy of thanks, so, lead balloons all round.

I think I would prefer the private sector idea of bonuses, instead of incremental increases. A good teacher could get five times their basic pay in a year where their students did well in exams.

In 2019, Irish asset managers earned just over €1m in fixed salaries, compared to €5.4m in bonuses, a ratio of variable to fixed pay of 510pc.

The EU average ratio was 339pc in 2019.

I haven't really thought about teacher's pay in years, but it is something I wondered about when I was in secondary school as a student. Nearly every student in the thousand or so students in my school would have been able to point out the terrible, bad, okay, good, and excellent teachers, so surely the teachers themselves have a rough idea. Is it not incredibly frustrating for the teacher's themselves that are on the okay and upwards side to know that they're getting paid the same or possibly less than the consistently bad and even terrible teachers?

I don't personally have anything against teacher pay, and don't know what the solution would even be, but it's something I had always wondered when in school.

Why? Because otherwise its open to manipulation.

If a teacher wants to cherry pick the most financially advantageous work, with no transparency or consistency. Its called the private sector.

You trade slow and steady and security for risk and reward.

To answer the OP's question: Baumol's Cost Disease. See: https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/diagnosing-william-baumol-s-cost-disease

"The late William Baumol of New York University’s Stern School of Business, who died in May, once pointed out a pattern: while rising wages are typically attributed in part to rising labor productivity, there can be upward salary pressure at jobs that haven’t experienced productivity gains.

The example Baumol and the late William G. Bowen made famous is that of the string quartet. The number of musicians and the amount of time needed to play a Beethoven string quartet for a live audience hasn’t changed in centuries, yet today’s musicians make more than Beethoven-era wages. They argued that because the quartet needs its four musicians as much as a semiconductor company needs assembly workers, the group must raise wages to keep talent—to keep its cellist from chucking a career in music and going into a better-paying job instead.

The effect now known as Baumol’s Cost Disease is used to explain why prices for the services offered by people-dependent professions with low productivity growth—such as (arguably) education, health care, and the arts—keep going up, even though the amount of goods and services each worker in those industries generates hasn’t necessarily done the same."

It's an odd thing from the inside. There are good and bad teachers but most are at least competent, no different from the private sector. The odd thing I have noticed is people going up and down in application and ability. Its a massively draining job at time, you really need to perform and this can be incredibly difficult when you are struggling personally. Most of these teachers come back around and are good again. Experience and continuity matter so a bad couple of years out of 30 is fine, good management should account for this and support will generally be offered.

I work really hard, definitely harder than most. In return I have a post (which gives an extra 9000eu on base pay) but there is a bit of luck in timing to get those along with it being dreadfully subjective at the interview level. Given the absolute nightmare I've seen promotions like this cause in staffrooms I would happily take a paycut to not have performance based teaching come in even though I would certainly benefit from them. Coherence and teamwork make good schools, with clear, open lines of communication. We are not a business and we shouldn't be run like one. Schools are emotional places, students are wonderful but a few hundred teenagers makes for a strange energy, the clarity of tenure based pay rises makes sense when you think of the objectives of schools. I actually know shockingly few teachers who would ever consider performance based pay as a good idea. What about the unbelievable year head in a tough school supporting parents and students alike? How do we judge the SEN teachers performance, or the home school? Or someone running 2/3 extra curriculars?

I'd imagine anyone proposing performance based has a very narrow view of what education actually is and a poor understanding of how schools work.

That’s not true. They do contribute to their pension. It’s just that the contribution is not even remotely in line with the generous final payments. But that’s the same across the public sector. Not something you can level at teachers specifically.

As for career break. I was sure they are entitled to one career break and not that many avail of it.

A great job, fair play to them:)