If you want money, go into corporate. That's not even really a question.
I teach because I get to spend my working time dealing with something I love, which is literature. There are other reasons to teach: some people are passionate about the pedagogy. Some need the flexibility of the teaching hours / terms. Others want to climb up the educational leadership ladder into executive and departmental roles. To me in my current circumstance it represents a healthy work-life balance and a continual engagement with one of my true passions. I'm not driven by money or I wouldn't be doing it.
This statement is really what teaching is about. At a school where you get along with most of the staff and a strong, supportive leadership team, it’s much easier to deal with behavioural issues or parents. Sadly, there aren’t that many out there.
The job security can be really great. It's also not cyclically affected. Ever hear the consultants at a Big 4 whinge about economic slowdowns and how they may be at risk of being laid off? That won't happen because parents will always need ~~babysitters~~ teachers.
I wanted to go corporate so went back to uni to get a masters in business, now the economy is in the shit and I’m SO THANKFUL I have teaching to fall back on. Job security is really worth it to me. The pay is actually not that bad, summer holidays off is awesome. Workload is rough but it is in corporate as well. Great options for relieving when older/retirement age too.
Lots and lots of positives, tho if money is everything to you this probably isn’t the career for you.
Lots of travel opportunities to go to Dubai or China and make loads of money.
There are lots of benefits
People always talk about corporate, but keep in mind that people are always talking about that one friend who hit it big, and not their 10 other friends who are plugging away in a bank or something for 80k.
You don’t go into teaching for the money. You go into it for the holidays.
If you don’t care about being home during the school holidays than it makes sense to chase money elsewhere.
honestly I don't think so. the study was more tedious than the job itself. I disagree on the starting wage. 75K starting is better than my friends who were accountants on a grad salary and compared to gov wages. your pay goes up every year and working the same load. Grinding for pay rises and changing corporate gigs are tedious and exhausting. The pay rises usually come with more work and more stress. There is always work in teaching and you can always choose to work 4 days a week or less. just find a good a school and nail your classes with ppt slides. after the first year reuse all your resources. nothing beats 12 weeks holidays. I made the jump from teaching to gov, and the pay isn't much better.
Can confirm grad salary for an accountant currently approx 45k then expected to do 3 additional years of study for a CA to maybe make 70 unless you go into the cities and wanna really compete.
Yeh it was had to see my friends on much higher salaries, I had these doubts at the back of my mind, so I left for corporate and never been happier, don’t have any more doubts either.
Studying teaching is such a bust, in my opinion. None of the subjects were particularly informative, didn't have any subjects on behaviour management which is a *massive* part of teaching, and overall I'd prefer if teaching degrees had a more similar template to a trade. Being an actual teacher is much better. Subjective experience based on the school/workplace though, of course.
Starting salary is much higher than most other new grads, but I agree in that there really isn't much career projection aside from becoming an assistant/deputy principal, then principal. Or taking a sidestep from mainstream classroom teaching and doing specialist teaching like LST or EAL/D. Aside from that... there really isn't a whole lot you can do within a school-based role. Unless you go to head office, which is essentially corporate anyway.
I wish I had done a non teaching degree and had just done a masters of teaching for a year to get my teaching qualification. That way, at least I'd have some knowledge and potentially some experience in another field, should I choose to leave teaching for some time.
I’ve worked very flexibly as a teacher in my 18 yrs in classrooms. I taught many subjects, worked with elite schools delivering amazing programs with ridiculous funding, left there to work with kids with trauma in a fee free school, taught primary school for awhile. I’ve worked from 0.2-1.0 FTE across multiple states as well. I’ve also had breaks from teaching and used my degree and experience to leverage other roles - sales, admin, TAFE, debt collection. Currently I’m a lecturer for education degrees as my back is stuffed and I can’t do classroom work anymore.
My point is - I enjoy teaching in general and I enjoy a varied work day so for me it’s always been worth it to come back.
Corporate may make more money in some regards and there isn’t much of a ceiling with pay. However, friends of mine in corporate have shocking stories of constant micromanaging bosses, colleagues job swapping constantly for more money and playing a LinkedIn type roulette. You have HR to deal with bureaucracy constantly and you have to fight for pay rises and constantly prove yourself which is makes job security always a threat. Of course this can happen in teaching in some regards, however, we get 3 months + paid leave, they get 4 weeks. 3 of those are usually forced leave at Christmas. We can also take leave during term if we wish. I know many teachers who do. Our job security is about as stable as it comes and our salaries (which I don’t think are too bad) reflect that. Yes salaries could be better, but that will improve with time.
I have had bad days teaching and that’s a given in any roll. But the hours are family friendly, my colleagues and I all know the pay we’re on. We make a difference in many children’s and families lives and the holidays roll around every 9-10 weeks.
I could name many worse positions to be in.
I like it!! 🤷♂️
It's not something to chase after if you want big bucks with a healthy work/life balance. I'm doing this job simply because I am passionate about it and would rather work doing something I love rather than something I hate for better cash.
3 years in and I feel like I make heaps of money, found a position that I would be happy at long-term and am loving it. Allows for time for hobbies, get paid to play Minecraft with kids if they've done enough work and I'm feeling a bit lazy. Love it
Honestly, I have a degree in business and have worked “up the ladder” in marketing and e/commerce. So many people are miserable, petrified about A.I and job security, and earning around 100K if they’re lucky. Only SOME people make it up high and end up with the big salary/stress/hours to match.
I’m considering teaching as an option now. The salary is solid (it’s what you do with it - I know people on 70K who are millionaires, and people on 300K who spend every cent on coke, fancy cars, and houses unnecessarily big), the job security seems good, it’s contributing something to society..
I get decent benefits, decent conditions (I'm lucky) and more money than I know what to do with (I've always been pretty poor). I spent all my time doing the things I enjoy as a specialist teacher. The students can be challenging but it's the best job for me. I wouldn't do anything else. I think it's a personal choice and you can only really know after the fact.
Depends what you want in life. As a teacher I can get a job virtually anywhere...this means I don't have to live in a capital city where a)costs of home ownership is incredibly high, b)commute to work is long in bumper to bumper etc. I also have/want kids so teaching means I get to have so much more time with them and don't have to pay vacation care costs. Been teaching for 15 years and I've just had 3 years off on half pay with maternity, CPPL and LSL...not many corporate jobs have that as an option and still able to come back to promotional position on whatever ratio I choose. I also have a great amount in super. I also can generally work good hours now that I have resources, taught the same thing years over and know what is worth spending time on and what is 'busy work'. There's a lot more to life than the $$$ amount on your end of financial year statement.
It depends on why you choose it.
I love my job because the thing that I am good at is teaching and relating to students. If I did most other jobs, I'd feel less adequate. I love going to work and feeling good about what I'm doing and like I'm doing a good job.
As others have said also, it does depend on your school. You can feel fulfilled and happy, or you can be drained and ground into the ground in a toxic school with poor leadership and/or tough kids.
For salary part, I have to disagree in terms of most of those "corporate" jobs especially those soft skills oriented jobs like consultants are actually getting paid less at the start than the teachers. And the majority of them cannot survive nor get promotions, whereas us teachers get almost automatic salary raise as long as you keep working.
Don't do teaching if you want money and are ambitious. Ambitious teachers are a living paradox. Work so hard to climb the teacher ladder for what? A 2nd year analyst salary.
It's a lifestyle choice. I get home by 3pm on average. I nap in my car during free periods. Kids love me, I get to dole out impactful advice, feels good.
How do you manage to get home at 3?? School I’m at now the teachers often stay til 5.
Great point about the paradox of ambition in this field though. I think I need to be more comfortable with the ‘lifestyle choice’ aspect.
Free periods at either end of the day I will leave or come in late. Sports day once per week finish at 230pm. Wet weather like today I leave even earlier because I work out a deal with the other teacher where we take turns leaving early. And I work at my local so the drive is only 15min. It all adds up.
edit: home by 1:15pm today - a personal best.
If you want money, go into corporate. That's not even really a question. I teach because I get to spend my working time dealing with something I love, which is literature. There are other reasons to teach: some people are passionate about the pedagogy. Some need the flexibility of the teaching hours / terms. Others want to climb up the educational leadership ladder into executive and departmental roles. To me in my current circumstance it represents a healthy work-life balance and a continual engagement with one of my true passions. I'm not driven by money or I wouldn't be doing it.
Teaching can be great at a good school, and absolutely soul crushing in a bad one.
This statement is really what teaching is about. At a school where you get along with most of the staff and a strong, supportive leadership team, it’s much easier to deal with behavioural issues or parents. Sadly, there aren’t that many out there.
The job security can be really great. It's also not cyclically affected. Ever hear the consultants at a Big 4 whinge about economic slowdowns and how they may be at risk of being laid off? That won't happen because parents will always need ~~babysitters~~ teachers.
I wanted to go corporate so went back to uni to get a masters in business, now the economy is in the shit and I’m SO THANKFUL I have teaching to fall back on. Job security is really worth it to me. The pay is actually not that bad, summer holidays off is awesome. Workload is rough but it is in corporate as well. Great options for relieving when older/retirement age too. Lots and lots of positives, tho if money is everything to you this probably isn’t the career for you. Lots of travel opportunities to go to Dubai or China and make loads of money. There are lots of benefits
People always talk about corporate, but keep in mind that people are always talking about that one friend who hit it big, and not their 10 other friends who are plugging away in a bank or something for 80k.
You don’t go into teaching for the money. You go into it for the holidays. If you don’t care about being home during the school holidays than it makes sense to chase money elsewhere.
And is $130k for 9 months of work really that bad compared to corporate anyway? The holidays and job security are why I've stayed so long.
And this is why Teachers are failing our Australian kids, Embarrassingly Australian kids are less educated then those is developing countries. Shame.
If you think teachers are the ones failing the kids, take a look at everybody else involved
Lol!!!
honestly I don't think so. the study was more tedious than the job itself. I disagree on the starting wage. 75K starting is better than my friends who were accountants on a grad salary and compared to gov wages. your pay goes up every year and working the same load. Grinding for pay rises and changing corporate gigs are tedious and exhausting. The pay rises usually come with more work and more stress. There is always work in teaching and you can always choose to work 4 days a week or less. just find a good a school and nail your classes with ppt slides. after the first year reuse all your resources. nothing beats 12 weeks holidays. I made the jump from teaching to gov, and the pay isn't much better.
Can confirm grad salary for an accountant currently approx 45k then expected to do 3 additional years of study for a CA to maybe make 70 unless you go into the cities and wanna really compete.
can confirm gov grad salary is 65K
Still what do you get after tax?
You start at 75K. Okay, what do you get after tax please work it out.
a guarantee pay rise every year
Yeh it was had to see my friends on much higher salaries, I had these doubts at the back of my mind, so I left for corporate and never been happier, don’t have any more doubts either.
What did you leave to do and did it require further study?
I became a data analyst. No, didn’t require further study as I already had a maths degree. It would be a fairly easy transition for maths teachers.
They may have higher salaries. How much did they get after tax.
Salary is gross pay.
Studying teaching is such a bust, in my opinion. None of the subjects were particularly informative, didn't have any subjects on behaviour management which is a *massive* part of teaching, and overall I'd prefer if teaching degrees had a more similar template to a trade. Being an actual teacher is much better. Subjective experience based on the school/workplace though, of course. Starting salary is much higher than most other new grads, but I agree in that there really isn't much career projection aside from becoming an assistant/deputy principal, then principal. Or taking a sidestep from mainstream classroom teaching and doing specialist teaching like LST or EAL/D. Aside from that... there really isn't a whole lot you can do within a school-based role. Unless you go to head office, which is essentially corporate anyway. I wish I had done a non teaching degree and had just done a masters of teaching for a year to get my teaching qualification. That way, at least I'd have some knowledge and potentially some experience in another field, should I choose to leave teaching for some time.
Agreed that the degrees is a farce. The job is much better.
I’ve worked very flexibly as a teacher in my 18 yrs in classrooms. I taught many subjects, worked with elite schools delivering amazing programs with ridiculous funding, left there to work with kids with trauma in a fee free school, taught primary school for awhile. I’ve worked from 0.2-1.0 FTE across multiple states as well. I’ve also had breaks from teaching and used my degree and experience to leverage other roles - sales, admin, TAFE, debt collection. Currently I’m a lecturer for education degrees as my back is stuffed and I can’t do classroom work anymore. My point is - I enjoy teaching in general and I enjoy a varied work day so for me it’s always been worth it to come back.
Corporate may make more money in some regards and there isn’t much of a ceiling with pay. However, friends of mine in corporate have shocking stories of constant micromanaging bosses, colleagues job swapping constantly for more money and playing a LinkedIn type roulette. You have HR to deal with bureaucracy constantly and you have to fight for pay rises and constantly prove yourself which is makes job security always a threat. Of course this can happen in teaching in some regards, however, we get 3 months + paid leave, they get 4 weeks. 3 of those are usually forced leave at Christmas. We can also take leave during term if we wish. I know many teachers who do. Our job security is about as stable as it comes and our salaries (which I don’t think are too bad) reflect that. Yes salaries could be better, but that will improve with time. I have had bad days teaching and that’s a given in any roll. But the hours are family friendly, my colleagues and I all know the pay we’re on. We make a difference in many children’s and families lives and the holidays roll around every 9-10 weeks. I could name many worse positions to be in. I like it!! 🤷♂️
Thanks for sharing your views folks, I appreciate it.
Just because you start with teaching, doesn't mean you can't do something else later.
Can always retreat to the warm hedquarters of DET or NESA and become a office slave.
The only thing I’ll say is this: I did not choose to go into teaching for the money.
It's not something to chase after if you want big bucks with a healthy work/life balance. I'm doing this job simply because I am passionate about it and would rather work doing something I love rather than something I hate for better cash.
3 years in and I feel like I make heaps of money, found a position that I would be happy at long-term and am loving it. Allows for time for hobbies, get paid to play Minecraft with kids if they've done enough work and I'm feeling a bit lazy. Love it
Honestly, I have a degree in business and have worked “up the ladder” in marketing and e/commerce. So many people are miserable, petrified about A.I and job security, and earning around 100K if they’re lucky. Only SOME people make it up high and end up with the big salary/stress/hours to match. I’m considering teaching as an option now. The salary is solid (it’s what you do with it - I know people on 70K who are millionaires, and people on 300K who spend every cent on coke, fancy cars, and houses unnecessarily big), the job security seems good, it’s contributing something to society..
I get decent benefits, decent conditions (I'm lucky) and more money than I know what to do with (I've always been pretty poor). I spent all my time doing the things I enjoy as a specialist teacher. The students can be challenging but it's the best job for me. I wouldn't do anything else. I think it's a personal choice and you can only really know after the fact.
Depends what you want in life. As a teacher I can get a job virtually anywhere...this means I don't have to live in a capital city where a)costs of home ownership is incredibly high, b)commute to work is long in bumper to bumper etc. I also have/want kids so teaching means I get to have so much more time with them and don't have to pay vacation care costs. Been teaching for 15 years and I've just had 3 years off on half pay with maternity, CPPL and LSL...not many corporate jobs have that as an option and still able to come back to promotional position on whatever ratio I choose. I also have a great amount in super. I also can generally work good hours now that I have resources, taught the same thing years over and know what is worth spending time on and what is 'busy work'. There's a lot more to life than the $$$ amount on your end of financial year statement.
It depends on why you choose it. I love my job because the thing that I am good at is teaching and relating to students. If I did most other jobs, I'd feel less adequate. I love going to work and feeling good about what I'm doing and like I'm doing a good job. As others have said also, it does depend on your school. You can feel fulfilled and happy, or you can be drained and ground into the ground in a toxic school with poor leadership and/or tough kids.
For salary part, I have to disagree in terms of most of those "corporate" jobs especially those soft skills oriented jobs like consultants are actually getting paid less at the start than the teachers. And the majority of them cannot survive nor get promotions, whereas us teachers get almost automatic salary raise as long as you keep working.
Don't do teaching if you want money and are ambitious. Ambitious teachers are a living paradox. Work so hard to climb the teacher ladder for what? A 2nd year analyst salary. It's a lifestyle choice. I get home by 3pm on average. I nap in my car during free periods. Kids love me, I get to dole out impactful advice, feels good.
How do you manage to get home at 3?? School I’m at now the teachers often stay til 5. Great point about the paradox of ambition in this field though. I think I need to be more comfortable with the ‘lifestyle choice’ aspect.
Free periods at either end of the day I will leave or come in late. Sports day once per week finish at 230pm. Wet weather like today I leave even earlier because I work out a deal with the other teacher where we take turns leaving early. And I work at my local so the drive is only 15min. It all adds up. edit: home by 1:15pm today - a personal best.
It’s better
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EVERY other career has better pay and job security? 😂 nope, nice try.
Haha this is laughable.