Which Students With Which ATARs Choose A Teaching Career?
I noted this past week a very critical media article noting that students with high ATARs (above 90) were far more likely to choose Medicine, Law or Engineering instead of Teaching; while students with apparently low ATARs were being offered entry into Teaching degrees.
The criticism; the ongoing and relentless criticism of teachers (and other public servants) is constantly offered up in some media as a source of our woes. Those same media outlets take no responsibility for the ongoing “take-down” of teachers and other public servants.
Those problem causing commentators in the media, and in some political channels, do not know their own stupidity.
If we want the very best of our 17, 18 and 19 year olds to consider teaching as the career that they dream of, how about we start talking it up. How about we start noting the incredible work that teachers do in not only teaching reading and maths, but also in developing incredible humans to be a part of our society.
And yet, in the “free market” – the ideology admired by those that despise public service – the dollar value of a person’s work clearly leans inward to high earning careers and leans away from public service like teaching, police work and being a nurse, a cleaner or a paramedic.
Which brings us back to which young students choose which topics to study at university.
We all know that home ownership, the old Aussie dream, now lives in a modern world with high income persons and high-income households most likely to have 2 incomes.
The “free market” tells our young people that if you choose to serve the public, in a public service occupation, that you will be priced out of ever owning your own home.
The “free market” has ordained that the higher the wage, the more likely you are to realise the prosperity.
The “free market” has financially incentivised our young people to look to some careers and away from others.
But what a complete and utter disaster for society that this is creating! Seriously!