Guns and Roses

Two news items appearing on the same page of Education Week (August 10, 2005; www.edweek.org) reflect opposing trends…

The first reported that teachers at more than 170 early childhood education centers in New Zealand are on their way to earning the same pay as regular school teachers, under a new collective-bargaining agreement. This year’s raises, which teachers began receiving last month, range from 2.4 percent to 12 percent. By 2008, when the increase is fully phased in, an average salary for a preschool teacher with eight years of experience should rise from #37,600 to $56,400 (about US $38,970). The pay increases are part of the $523 million the government is spending on early childhood services in the current fiscal year. The budget also includes money to help more teachers receive professional development in order to become fully registered, or certified.

The second item reports that Education Ministry officials in Thailand are ready to buy guns for teachers who remain at schools in a violence-ridden region of the country. Growing violence in three provinces, some of it apparently aimed at educators, has prompted more than 3,500 teachers to make transfer requests. Government officials said a survey of teachers in Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces found that some 2,000 of them wanted the weapons, which they could pay for by borrowing from the teachers’ cooperatives. The government is willing to lend military weapons to teachers who cannot buy them.

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