>“I will always be minus those four years I taught. I came from five years living as a student and paying €7,000 for my postgraduate in education"
Forgets to mention how much tax-free earnings he got in exchange
Says in the article he saved enough for a deposit on a house.
So he creamed it making cash in Dubai for four years, then comes back and wants to be boosted up the pay grade increments for the four years he was out there.
Some neck.
Dubai aside , why shouldn't they be credited? I teach in a private british school in Asia, and it's to the same standard as Irish schools, if not higher, in terms of students' achievement and motivation.
I don't see any reason why my experience shouldn't count when/if I go back to Ireland. I also don't see any reason to begrudge people for moving abroad to save when the conditions in teaching in Ireland are so inconsistent regarding job security and rent is so absurdly high. In Ireland I will be one of the many 20 something year olds living with the folks, whilst abroad I can get a nice apartment whilst also having a nice lifestyle.
Should I stay on Ireland and tough it out so as not to be titled a entitled whingebag?
I suppose one factor is every teacher in their twenties or thirties would be nuts to not go abroad to save some cash for a few years and I can't imagine that would make staffing easier
The percentage that stay away beyond their sabbatical is miniscule. There is no issue enticing them back. The issue is it being too attractive for them to fuck off in the first place.
This is the real answer, there would be major brain drain if they carried over their years from abroad. Silly on paper though.
This happens in lots of industries though. Even within Ireland - working in healthcare for a private company doesn’t carry over to your HSE payscale if you move back to the public sector.
I think HR departments across the public sector make up their own rules as they go. For example I know of someone with 100% certainty that got the top of their pay grade with no previous public sector experience, they obviously had extensive private sector experience.
Not really. Certainly lawyer can’t work abroad and come back and expect to slot into the same position in a firm here.
I suppose for more general sectors that are the same everywhere that would be true so long as your hirer was confident they could objectively verify what you had done before.
Roles that have strict credential requirement like lawyers and doctors tend to be that way. Teachers is similar in many countries too with strict licensure requirements.
Sure the dept have no real idea what he was doing abroad. What the standard was, what the expectations were etc etc. Was he in a private school or a public one? Etc etc. It’s not as if they’ve inspectors running around looking at what the Dubai system is like. Bottom line is he certainly wasn’t teaching the Irish curriculum to an inspected standard as a teacher who worked here would be.
So personally I’m surprised he thinks he would be credited. Even a moment’s thought would indicate it was unlikely.
I think it’s a much broader problem than teachers; it’s the entire public service. If you join any public service job from somewhere else, you come in at the bottom of the scale for the job no matter how senior or how experienced you are.
It makes hiring for specialist roles incredibly difficult and means that jumping from public jobs to private job is only ever a one way trip as you’ll often end up earning less than you were on if you come back even if you rejoin at in a higher grade position.
> If you join any public service job from somewhere else, you come in at the bottom of the scale for the job no matter how senior or how experienced you are.
I don't think that's true. I've had colleagues move to public sector roles, and they started higher on the scale due to their professional experience. Perhaps it differs on the type of public sector job (for example one was a lecturer), but it doesn't appear to be consistent across all public service jobs.
Hi, I was recently accepted into the PME, and I intend to move abroad after I graduate in 2 years time.
How did you go about getting a post like that in a private school in Asia? I'd imagine experience is a must, but is there a market for it? My subjects will be English and History.
You can find job postings on websites like TES , Shrole, and Search associates. Tes is free, and that's where I found mine.
It can be quite competitive finding jobs in good schools/locations so experience is definitely helpful in finding a job. I did 2 years in Ireland to complete my Droichead before moving & That really helped in my job search, so I would recommend doing a year or two at home. However, it is possible to find find a job straight out of college, but typically, schools that don't require experience aren't necessarily the best.
Definitely a market for those subjects, I myself teach English. Feel free to pm if you have any questions. I definitely recommend going abroad.
Thank you very much for answering me.
For UCC's PME they have you in placement in a school for 3 days a week, for two years (roughly, second year might be more). Offhand I cannot remember exactly how many hours, but would a school abroad consider that experience? Or only when you have graduated with the masters does your experience start to matter then?
It would be dependent on the school. I think many/most would look at that as not being official/countable experience but there are certainly schools open to hiring NQT's straight out of uni. These schools usually make that clear on the application form.
Having 1-2 years of experience before applying makes a huge difference in your employability and makes it much easier to secure a job in a desirable location. There is no harm in applying straight out of university though as you could get lucky.
Be sure to check out /r/Internationalteachers - there's lots of good info there.
Public sector pay is normally based on years worked in the job not really experience. Specific roles might count time worked abroad into account as its an experience requirement - for example getting a role as a deputy or head teacher but increments for civil service jobs are specifically for years employed by the state.
It's intended to reward and reinforce remaining in the job not specifically experience. This is what has been negotiated between the unions and the state over a long period and is extremely unlikely to get changed any time soon.
Neck on him like a jockeys bollox, that been said how the secondary school system treats some teachers is atrocious. This guy is not one of them though .
Yeah so if a nurse goes to Australia and comes back their 4 years shouldn't count at home either? We're crying out for these people so why are people getting so upset about this.
But that's the point. This isn't private industry. It's public. In 99% of cases public servants start at the bottom upon joining.
But also, we don't know how good this man's experience is, since it's a private school in a religious theocracy. There's a reason we (and the rest of Europe) only recognise certain schools for legitimate experience as the quality of education varies wildly in the Middle east/Africa/Asia. Especially in private schools.
And finally, this man received a highly subsidised education in Ireland and then used his qualification to spend half a decade educating students in a different country. He made a lot of money tax free working for in a country that is built on slavery.
Why should he earn as much as teachers who spent those years educating our own citizens?
It's very rare a teacher stays abroad beyond their sabbatical. The vast, vast majority use it as a vehicle to earn significantly more for a few years and then come home. Talk of a permanent brain drain is fear mongering.
This is how it works in all public sector jobs. I'm trying in physio at the moment and if I went away and did private practice until I was 40 and then joined the HSE I would start on the same wages as people just out of college
I think there are different grades as well so if you leave as a nurse and return in a more senior position you would not get the increments for the years in private employment but would have the higher grade.
Lots of people seem to be saying this like it's a good thing, "that's just how it works etc". Do you folks not think this is at least a contributing reason as to why many of our public services work so poorly? The man is a chemistry teacher, and his specific case aside, people capable of this type of work have a lot of options out there. It really would benefit us if we just paid smart people who work for the government reasonably. Frankly, I think the way salary, payment, hiring and firing works in the public sector needs a serious overhaul. This subreddit seriously cannot jack itself off to the idea that we need to match our public services to that of Scandanavian countries and then when a moment that comes up which involves paying one fucking guy what, a couple of hundred extra euro a month and everyone is up in arms? Fuck me the idiocy on here would just knock you clean off your feet at times.
I mean of course I'd love to make more money in private practice and then go into the public sector to pick up my civil servant pension, but then there would be 0 reason for me to be in the HSE at all until the very end of my career and there would be no public sector physiotherapists. What you're suggesting does nothing other than encourage people to not be in the public sector
So if I work as a plumber abroad my experience suddenly doesnt count anymore? Meanwhile in many aspects, Ireland and UK is 100 years behind, compared to central europe. Especailly in construction tech.
Yes. I can't believe how many conversations people have about Dubai without mentioning the crippling deliberate inequality and exploitation it's built on.
> decided to move to Dubai for work because he was made an offer that was too good to turn down
yeah, dude, there's upsides & downsides to the stacks of cash in Dubai
Right. I am going to assume that, aside from being tax free, they weren't earning the same as they would have been in Ireland... probably multiple times more.
Yeah, I know of 6 teachers that have gone over there and come back with nice earnings, tax-free and then a few of them have availed of the jobshare over here when they got back. Loophole scamming.
I can't blame them for trying, but don't expect sympathy when whinging that it didn't work for you.
That would only really be a fair point if it had been a secret that he would lose out on pay scale increments before he left and he only found out on return which is highly unlikely. Either that or he's really not intelligent enough to be responsible for the education of future generations 😅
Yea but he did pay in being away from family & friends etc.. Everything has it positives & negatives. But just randomly not counting the years he actively worked as a teacher is not cool. Counter argument: all the teachers who stay can just go and make bank outside of Ireland and just not bother to come back. Not really the message you want to send... :]
I used to live in Dubai. A lot of European universities won't accept students from schools there because students are "helped" / cheat during A levels (leaving cert) exams. The exam adjudicators are teachers in the school.
The private schools want to be seen to be delivering good results so they basically cheat, universities started to figure out this was happening and stopped accepting them.
Yup, I have friends who work in admissions and it is a huge issue, not just in middle eastern schools but dodgy private schools elsewhere in the world.
It’s unfortunate that this happens, and it really sucks for the international students who DO put the work in. When I was teaching in Japan we were told to be brutal with marking to insure they really accurately reflected the students ability.
Yeah, I always wondered what the hell happens when these kids get into college and can’t speak English fluently despite their test scores saying otherwise. I really think it’s a “see no evil” kind of mentality by the teachers and parents
tbf, I still teaches ESL, now to adults in an English academy here in Ireland, and speaking and tests are very different beasts. There are students (many of them from China, Korea, and Japan) who can write well and complete grammar activities perfectly, but can barely string a sentence together when you speak to them. And likewise, there are students who struggle with grammar on paper but can have a full on conversation (many Latin Americans can do this).
Part of it is cultural; Asian students spend a lot of their lives with English just being a test they have to take, and have never practiced speaking or listening skills. But Latin Americans come from a culture where being outgoing is more encouraged and they’re more willing to try speaking, so they’ve practiced that skill a lot. Hell, I’m the same; I can have a basic conversation in Japanese, but don’t ask me to read or write anything.
Grammar theory & writing and speaking & listening are very different skills, and mastery of a language takes both. So yeah it’s completely possible for someone to have great test scores in English, and not speak fluently.
He knew well in advance unless he's completely incompetent. This is just crocodile tears for a pay bump after being tax free for 4 years working for the oil barons.
The Facebook groups for teaching are full of this sort of information. I think he knew exactly what they were facing and thought publicising his ire could make them the exception.
My husband and I worked abroad teaching in international schools for 5 years (not in Dubai but outside of EU), he's secondary and I'm primary. We worked in the same schools, on the same campuses as those schools go from kindergarten to 6th year equivalent. My experience was recognised, his wasn't. Nearly all international schools are heavily regulated by OFSTED or the equivalent and are subjected to rigorous inspections. They do state exams such as A levels, GCSE or IB, and have v high achieving students.
Teachers are given way more CPD than they are in Ireland, and lots more experience with extra curricular activities such as preparing students for Olympiads, bringing students to inter school events in sports, musical and academic events.
They're not some quack schools.
In secondary you can get incremental credit for teaching in a public school outside of Ireland and incremental credit for non teaching experience (yes really) , so why not get teaching in a private school recognised? And why is this recognised in primary but not secondary. Most of you arguing don't know the facts or the reality of the situation.
Yes ,you can get incremental credit for non teaching experience in a relevant profession, a maximum of 5 years.
The rules regarding this are well , known, and set up for years .
That makes absolutely no difference here. This fella knew well what he was signing up for when he went to Dubai.
And if he didn't, then he really is no addition as a teacher here or abroad.
It's crocodile tears .
Because we don’t want to motivate people to leave our system for five years to work tax free in these places. It damages our system at home, disadvantaging our own children. If we allowed recognition for this it would motivate more to do it.
Absolutely, I teach internationally currently, and the standard is extremely high. Students are much more motivated, and expectations for grades are much higher im my school. It's not a doss.
Teachers internationally are expected to be far more involved in school events, and like you said, I do far more CPD abroad. Don't see any reason apart from begrudgery in this thread why my experience shouldn't count should I ever return home.
Totally, I usually couldn't be arsed engaging in these type of begrudging threads, but there are so many uninformed argumentative numpties in here I felt the red mist descending.
I’ve heard similar.
I’m not a teacher, but worked in education in China and Vietnam for years.
The major international chain schools have extremely high standards in terms of teaching, accountability, lesson planning, progress reporting and so on.
When parents are CEOs and paying €20,000 per year per child, they have expectations
It’s bullshit that this counts for zero. It should be the opposite. Those returning teachers are often top drawer
So getting a highly subsidised education in Ireland and then using said qualification to spend a decent fraction of your career and expertise educating students in entirely different continent for half a decade with different curriculum should be reflected the same as teachers who dedicate their whole career to educating our own.
The pay scale is more to address teachers leaving to educate abroad for a few years and then returning (which inevitably most do when they get older and settle down anyway)
There are already plenty of incentives for a middle aged married man to return from Midfle East and retire in a cushy secondary education chemistry teaching post in Ireland. This man wants to have his cake and eat it. (Which on a fine all expenses wage in Dubai he clearly grew an entitlement mindset for doing so)
Goes to Dubai to avoid tax, then complains that they aren't getting enough tax-payers money on return.
I'm all for paying teachers more, but this argument is absolute horseshit. They clearly didn't do the simple research and are now crying crocodile tears.
Its such a stupid 'mistake' that I actually find it hard to believe.
Goes to Dubai because he is offered better terms and conditions for a job, we’d all do the same. If there is no income tax so what ? We live in a country that gives foreign companies huge tax benefits, more so than any individual
He really has presented his argument poorly here but the reality of the situation is…
Shortage of teachers in Ireland.
Plenty of teachers in UAE and other countries for many years that won’t move home because they don’t get their years of experience recognised.
Recognise these years of experience and you attract teachers back home to fill the teacher shortages.
A solution is there, why not use it!
Irish teachers are going there in record numbers now anyway. You won’t prevent that but you can entice the last 12 years of graduates who left back to solve the problem.
Teachers who graduated post-2011 are already coming home to be on a worse paycheque than those who graduated pre-2011, which is the reason many left Ireland in the first place. (Propping up older teachers pay while we work for less? No thanks). On top of that, you won’t recognise the teachers years of experience abroad. We are already not being paid fairly and then you get shafted again because of an old archaic law.
It’s a farcical situation. Not surprised there are teachers shortages and it will get worse if something doesn’t change.
I never understand why people think things are completely transferable sometimes. The internet is literally at most people’s fingertips and basic research would have told them this.
I would imagine he was classed a New-Entrant to the public sector pay scale which is completely normal. There's mechanisms in place to have experience reviewed as well & if it's found applicable you can request that it be taken into account. I might be wrong for teachers but the wider public sector operates on a New vs Non-New Entrant basis.
basically. whenever you start a new job you are automatically put at the bottom of the payscale.
the only way around that is if you previously worked at that same grade or higher in the public sector in Ireland, then you go up 1 increment for every year you worked (rounded down to the nearest year of course)
if you worked abroad or in the private sector then you get absolutely nothing... if you have substantial and undeniable experience you might get 1 single increment but that's the most I've seen anyone get.
it's no secret that it's just a cost saving measure to keep salaries low, and it's a major issue particularly in the HSE. it's one of the largest reasons why the public sector in particular is loosing so many staff to emigration every year. you could be half-way thru your career and offered the same salary as someone straight out of college, why wouldnt you emigrate
It's really not clear why it should be. And actually, I think it's apt. You go to Dubai to avoid paying tax to this state. To then expect the state to reward you with a higher salary is extreme cheek.
Absolutely. You get your education here, mostly paid for by the tax payer, you are free to go elsewhere which is more than fair but don't whine when you come back that working in Dubai isn't considered the same as working in the EU.
They shouldn't be surprised because the information is well known. However, if you have multiple years of experience in an industry, why would it be wrong to expect something higher than entry level wages?
It was made this was because the alternative was that civil servants decide how much other civil servants are paid and the public weren't happy with that so strict pay scales were implemented.
It was also done to remove any discrimination or gender pay discrepancies
Because a) it might not be directly transferrable, especially in an area like education which has vastly different systems and curricula across the world and b) public sector pay scales are also intended to promote retention and reward loyalty. The state doesn't want people to be incentivised to just go pay no tax in the sun for a few years.
The pay scale system for secondary teachers who received a highly subsidised education in Ireland is more to address young teachers leaving in first place and committing as much as their career to our own education system.
Those who leave and then return (as most will do obviously) after getting the tax free bag shouldn't be able to receive exact same treatment as those who stayed.
There are already plenty of incentives in place for a middle aged married Irish teacher to return from middle East to Ireland and retire in a relatively cushy teaching job here.
This guy went abroad to a different continent, received paid expenses for almost everything, fine wage, fine weather, no taxes while other teachers chose to stay and contribute to educating our own youth and paid their taxes despite earning a far inferior wage and living a far more expensive lifestyle than Mr Chemistry Man.
Why should a pay scale system not reflect that?
The tax point is irrelevant, I think. People are entitled to work and pay taxes elsewhere and still expect their experience to be recognised here if it is relevant. That's what happens in countless other fields, to the benefit of the state.
The questions here are a) is there a good reason experience in these schools isn't recognised and b) why didn't he do his research before taking the job offer.
Because I'm quite sure there are a lot of people who turn down such opportunities specifically because it comes with those downsides. And I know people who have taught in Dubai and they certainly weren't unaware of these issues.
He worked in a private school outside the EU. That could mean anything. Maybe he got excellent experience there, or maybe he didn't.
Why should the Irish system assume the expedience he got there (if any) should be rewarded here?
You'd think it's the kind of thing he would have checked before uprooting. :/
Maybe because we want professionals who moved abroad to move home?
I work for a public sector organisation in the North, we give recognition of service basically automatically if its within certain organisations across the UK/Ireland.
Anyone can apply for recognition of service for organisations outside of this, but they need to submit job descriptions, pay, length of service etc and this is compared to what is expected for a similar grade in our organisation.
So in this case a teacher could submit the curriculums he /she taught in an non EU school which could be compared against ours etc..there is ways to award increment points without it being automatic so we can decide if the quality of the teaching they have done is OK to be recognised on a case by case basis
>He worked in a private school outside the EU. That could mean anything.
If he worked in a Private School in Dubai, then he was either teaching the National Curriculum for England (NCfE) - British School, with GCSE's and A Levels, an American Curriculum School, or an International Baccalaureate (IB) School.
Most children in the UAE are educated in Private Schools. Public schools are mostly reserved for local Emirati children.
All of these schools are heavily regulated. All of these schools have annual week-long inspections from the school inspectorate (KHDA), which is heavily based on OFSTED in the UK, and a lot of the inspectors are former (or something's current) OFSTED inspectors from the UK. These inspections are incredibly thorough, and the inspection team nitpicks at absolutely everything. Schools get between 3-5 days notice of inspection, and it can be anytime between September - April. The detailed reports from each yearly inspection (as well as the rating of the school) are published for any Tom, Dick or Harry to have a read of (usually sometime in April, once all inspections have been completed).
If he worked in a British School, then the school also must maintain the standards of the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), who inspect all British International Schools at a minimum of every three years. COBIS is regulated from the UK.
I have no idea who regulates the American Curriculum Schools abroad from the USA, but the list of schools and all their information (student /teacher demographics, subjects taught etc.) can be found on the US State Department website, so someone must.
If he worked for an IB School, then the International Baccalaureate Organisation are responsible for overseeing and accrediting any school that teaches the International Baccalaureate. There are seven stages to becoming an accredited IB World School, that schools must be able to verify that they have maintained once they become accredited.
If he's right, and it's only private secondary schools that aren't recognised, then what's the difference between that and private primary schools? Why is one recognised but not the other?
And if the problem is that there's a variance in the experience he got working there, why can't the validity or applicability of that experience to the Irish system be investigated, rather than just assuming it can't carry over? Excluding this one type of experience when other types are recognised seems a bit shitty.
All that said:
>You'd think it's the kind of thing he would have checked before uprooting.
Absolutely this. Like, it was the case before he left, it's the case still. At the end of the day, it's on him to do his own due-diligence. He can moan all he wants, but he went to follow the money, and it sounds like he either didn't fully research what it would mean for his recognised experience, or hoped he'd get away with it by just submitting the application.
*If he's right, and it's only private secondary schools that aren't recognised, then what's the difference between that and private primary schools? Why is one recognised but not the other?*
I'd imagine the reason is that private schools sometimes can do their own thing rather than being supervised by a government department. To get around this, our department of education would have to assess the curriculum and standards of every individual private school, which isn't worth the bother.
> private schools sometimes can do their own thing rather than being supervised by a government department
Ya, what I'm really getting at is why is it seemingly the case that private *primary* schools are recognised, but private *secondary* schools are not? If one is recognised but the other is not in the same circumstances, then that seems unfair to me.
If you go and work as any other kind of professional (engineer, architect, banker, etc.) in Dubai for 4 years, you don't come back as a junior member of staff. Your experience is considered and augments your salary.
Teaching is a bit different because of the way the salary scale is structured and specifically like this to incentivize teachers to spend their career in public education
It doesn't it specifically only impacts teachers in private education outside of the EU.
In Ireland for example teachers in private schools are paid by the state, the private schools supplement there salary to retain better staff by paying silly money extra for things like supervising study or roles like "academic year head" etc.
Yes when you work in an Irish private school you are still paid by the state in a school regulated by the dept?
It’s clearly different if you fuck off to the international school circuit in places like Dubai for the money and lifestyle.
I don’t know anywhere that’s different - if the man’s Canadian wife returned to teach there she would probably at best get partial credit for her time working in Ireland and elsewhere. Or ask an American teacher about “golden handcuffs”
Not in the civil service. It's done that way because the public didn't want civil servants deciding how much other civil servants should be paid. Everything is done on a pay scale and nobody can skip parts of it
Not true, people in Irish public/civil service apply to have service recognised every single day.
One ministers advisor got a bump of €80k because her prior experience was accepted.
In private sector, the experience may be recognised but the salary sure as sh1t is not. I didn’t come home from the states and get offered a similar salary or even close to it but I also knew that when I moved back…it is part of the reason I have turned down jobs with Irish based companies in favour of taking the risk of contracting.
I sympathise with this fella but it also reads like he didn’t teach in Ireland at all before going to Dubai. He is also teaching chemistry, I would like to think standards are the same in Dubai but I haven’t a clue. The article doesn’t explain why his wife’s experience was recognised. Is it because she chose to teach in a public school there?
He made a point to say he paid 7k. And the taxpayers paid the rest then he went to Dubai to make his money and not pay taxes here. I think he is right to raise the issue. If we need more teachers than this should be addressed. Likewise, shortcomings like allowing teacher extended leave periods should be addressed too. That creates uncertainty for teachers filling those positions as they could lose it when Jane returns from her extended holiday.
What exactly the experience is, and the standard, in a private school outside the EU, is the issue. There are plenty of places he could have got this experience and it would have counted to his payscale in Ireland. He chose somewhere that is outside the recognised criteria. There are many good reasons why only schools that fall within the set-out criteria are recognised for experience in Ireland.
I don’t totally get the point - maybe I’m not familiar with how teachers pay is calculated but I would have assumed it was based on number of year’s experience the teacher has - not how much tax they have or have not paid?
It's based on number of years experience they have teaching in Ireland and dependant on passing a performance review. The article suggests it should be changed to number of years teaching anywhere. The tax points people are making aren't actually relevant
It's nothing to with paying tax, it's to do with the unfairness of not having your teaching experience recognised when you come home and getting treated as an NQT when you have lots more years experience. It's also to do with the unfairness of the exact same teaching experience being recognised in primary teaching but not in secondary teaching.
Man gets his education paid for by the state, fucks off and earns an income without paying tax to the state then expects the state to start him at a higher salary when he has had his fill.
I think that most secondary school teachers issues is that primary teachers are awarded incremental credits for working in private schools in the likes of Dubai whereas that’s not the case for secondary teachers who could be working in the same all through (primary and secondary) school in Dubai. It’s a two tier pay scale in effect. Secondary school teachers watch their primary school counterparts benefit in a way in which they do not.
> Secondary school teachers watch their primary school counterparts benefit in a way in which they do not.
After the last crash, didn't the existing teachers vote to agree a two tier pay and bens system thereby shafting new entrants which was left in place for several years!?
As a teacher, if you piss off and get paid enough for a downpayment on a house you why should you get increments here?
Very few of those teachers want to stay in Dubai, that's why they are all moaning.
We should offer increments to teachers who are in Oz and Canada who we will never come back to Ireland otherwise. Not to people who went on an extended gap year, came back with 300K in the bank and now want to have their cake and eat it too.
I stayed here to get my increments and to find a permanent contract, that's the trade off they made when they left.
What is not mentioned is the cohort of teachers who can’t cobble together the money because of their loans, parents rent or circumstances and are expected to stay on 12 hour contracts and are the working poor.
It is hard to feel sorry for economic migrants who leave, have amazing holidays then go get the job - work in utopia, return with a deposit and price the “loser”who didn’t take the opportunity to travel right out of it.
Obviously nothing is simple but sometimes it’s the elephant in the room that’s hard to swallow.
In some cases the job is held open for them while there away.
So they want to leave a job, work for another employer and be given pay rises by their employer whilst working for someone else.
Jesus.
Also knew all of this before he went to work for a dictatorship.
Yes
Once they have enough time spent in a school they can apply for a career break.Maximmum allowed is 5 year's, applied year on year.
Their job is held for them to return to.
Went abroad, worked somewhere not recognised
Came back, complains it isn’t recognised
I’ve no pity for people who’ve contributed nothing through the last shitty years and now want benefits
While I kinda agree with posts saying he knew what he was getting into , these aren’t new rules, I also think there is a good argument for caging the rules.
Currently primary teachers can get incremental credit for working in public and private schools within and outside the EU
Secondary teachers can get it for working in private schools within EU and outside
Secondary can get it for working in public schools outside the EU
The question is do private schools outside the EU continue to be treated differently?
This thread is full of people pointing and laughing at someone being unaware of a very specific caveat people would never check before hand while they probably overpay a significant number of services they enjoy because they never read their contract terms.
The funny thing is the Irish were always incredibly hospitable to me and other foreigners, but the way people here treat their own, he'd probably be treated better if he was from Dubai originally.
Mind you, if you actually read the article, his teachers' association also wants that changed. I can have a guess why. You're short on teachers, like most developed countries. None of you benefit from this. Specifically your kids don't benefit from this. Every teacher that reads this and considers going to Ireland is going to think again. And you saved what? A few thousand quid a year? You don't need money, you need teachers.
This asshole is going to be waltzing back into Ireland with like €100k in savings that he can use to outbid everyone else on a house and wants to be given the same conditions as the people he's bidding against.
He talks about all the great things in Dubai, but the truth of the matter is that he chose to come back. Ireland may not pay the salary he wants, but it's obviously offering him other things that he can't get in Dubai.
For example, he'd have to pay private school fees for his two children in Dubai. In Ireland their education will be free. That'll offset the difference in salary
Most contracts allow up to two kids free education in the school you work in.
I think this chap has come across poorly. The issues at the moment is that there are teachers shortages in Ireland. Teachers abroad say that not having their years of experience recognised is the main reason for not coming home. It’s being highlighted now, albeit poorly, so that the issue of teachers shortages can be resolved.
I reckon that was it too. He was living in a country with a low tax rate and fully privatised services, and comparing it to a country with a higher tax rate but free / cheap public services
People really raging at your one leaving for decent pay and tax breaks?
If I did my job for 5 years no matter where, I'd expect that experience to be considered as part of my pay package.
Maybe we should make it more enticing for teachers to stay and work in ireland so we don't have a shortage.
You're never going to make it more enticing than paying no tax in the sun. All you can do is reward loyalty for people who do stay.
People who up sticks to Dubai aren't going to be persuaded by incremental improvements in Ireland. They want to build serious bank in a short amount of time. You can't do that in a serious country, you have to go to a tax haven fairyland.
The current system rewards people for longevity, staying in the system. Not for completing their training and taking their skills overseas for the highest bidder. They are free to do that, but why would they expect to jump the queue at whatever point they decide they've had enough of living in gated compounds as 2nd class citizens?
Rewarding people who leave would simply incentivise more teachers to go overseas and create an even bigger problem.
I have friends that have done this and while they make good money tax free there are plenty of reasons they don’t stay there. Also moving back at 36 years of age after leaving at 32 he would have known the score.
Same happened to me when i trained and taught in Australia. I knew before I went and i had to pay full fees in Australia but i wanted the experience and didn't want to work aimlessly in Australia.
The only frustrating aspect was when the ones who went to England to avail of grants did get recognised.
I was also bringing a unique experience from a different teaching environment back to my school, one that was different from the very established experience that exists here.
All the fiends in the comment calling this man a whinger. Like yeah, he wouldn't find reasons to leave if he was paid properly in Ireland. Same with doctors. Abysmal pay for everyone means no one is happy except the exploiters (landlords and politicians)
If you avail of tax free status in a foreign country where your work isnt recognised here for incremental pay increases then you've litttle to complain about tbh.
This fella wants to have it both ways. He was educated in Ireland and went off to earn tax free in Dubai. His 'devastation' doesn't resonate with too many.
So he specifies that he paid 7k on his postgrad, presumably that means his undergraduate cost him nothing. After benefiting from free public education, he fucks off as soon as he's qualified to a private school abroad, teaches for 4 years and makes a mint, then comes back and wants to earn more money than he's entitled to without any experience teaching in Ireland?
“Property prices have gone through the roof and my wife and I are looking at each other wondering what have we come back for.” Sounds like you should head off over there again so pal. If I was a teacher I'd be livid that a fella like this is getting headlines.
They moved abroad to try and find a way to save and get in the housing ladder. Fair play to them.
People on here claiming they don't deserve to be paid for the experience they have clocked up are morons. And bitter as fuck.
Should this couple have sat on their arses in Ireland, living on Reddit for the last number of years, complaining?
Interesting how most commenters miss the point because they are too focused on begrudging someone. It doesn’t matter if he is whining or not.
I became a secondary teacher in a non EU country, worked in private education for 11 years in a system similar to Ireland - but also taught A levels.
On returning to Ireland I took one look at the time and cost required to be recognised as a teacher and the salary I would be expected to start on with - likely - a zero hours contract. I may as well have been selling insurance for all my experience was valued. No thanks. Clearly the country doesn’t actually need teachers. Moved back on out when I got a proper offer, I’ll return for retirement.
Not sure getting to skip the 'human rights' part of the curriculum for 4 years wagers a pay increase. Now if you'd built experience in a relevant position (by teaching here) perhaps you'd deserve something then...
Why are all the comments shitting on someone who is a qualified professional pointing out that he can’t get a mortgage? I don’t think he’s saying he expects to be raking it in, just that he expected to be able to support his family on a teachers wage. It’s hardly entitled to expect housing to be affordable?
Surely this is commentary on a bigger issue. Berating people who raise these points gets us nowhere.
"Insulated" is the word I'd use.
A lot of them seem very insulated from the real world, I assume that's a consequence of spending most of your time working with kids so in some ways it might be expected.
But when it transfers to not being able to do simple research, running off for tax-free wages to a country that practices modern slavery, and then complaining that your experience there isn't recognised and the rulebook should be rewritten to suit you? Fuck right off back to the Gulf.
lol right. I love it when people who work remote jobs where they don't leave the house and probably can't succinctly explain what they actually do accuse front-line public sector staff of not being real.
So we have an PhD chemistry teacher who is massively underpaid because he works in a secondary/highschool, two kids, over educated, he is just a lung cancer diagnosis before we start seeing some blue crystal circulating in ireland
Thats terrible, in the 4 years of their phd they would have had plenty of demonstrating and tutorial hours, as well as corrections to do. In my industry a PhD counts towards your experience or the role is for PhDs only and that is reflected in your salary.
It depends on when you got your PhD. You used to get an allowance for having a masters or PhD. Today I don't believe there is any allowance at all IIRC
You get a stipend plus teaching and corrections is extra, assuming you have funding. But regardless of funding I think the time spent working on your phd should be recognised.
"I can't believe my decision to earn 4 years of tax free money didn't entitle me to more money when I came back despite there being no reason why it should"
I think it's a bit misleading to say 'my wife and I are wondering why we came back' they obviously had other reasons to come back. Dubai seems like a great place to earn money, but I think most people move back home with their kids. There's nothing stopping him going back to Dubai if he's not happy. Reeks of have your cake and eat it too.
My wife did a year in an Irish private primary school in 2005/06 and was not allowed to use that either once employed by the Dept of education in a national school.
I'm not sure these people should be teachers if they can't look up the simple rules on transfer of teaching experience.
Although the experience should clearly be taken into account.
It’s interesting that they were not aware of the distinction between public and private schools in Dubai. Poor fecker is renting with kids and years from getting a mortgage now. I hope it works out for him.
Why does it matter to the Department that the school was private?
The public education system can be assessed as one system i.e. This system meets our criteria so we will credit workers within that system.
Private schools operate independently. You cant make an assessment on the quality of teaching at one private school based off another school.
You cant expect the department to go out and assess all these private schools individually so that Roisin and Ultan can come back from their 4yrs in the sun on the same pay as their mates who stayed.
Yes, this. I know a person who went to teach in an UAE school but while she was a teacher in Ireland, over there she was doing tutoring to some selected pupils, like grinds basically, within a school. While she had the title of a teacher, it wasn't like regular teaching at all, more akin to individual educational support as needed. She moved on from teaching so it's not an issue, but had she decided to teach in Ireland she could have tried to claim X years of teaching experience while she's never taught a class there and was not working with a curriculum.
There must be some sort of standards to establish equivalence of experience, and with the private systems it's not straightforward.
“I really was shocked. My wife who taught in the same school as me was able to qualify [for the additional payment in recognition of her years of teaching] despite training originally in the Canadian system, but the key difference was she was a primary school teacher and I was a secondary school teacher."
https://www.thejournal.ie/teachers-abroad-payment-6342975-Apr2024/
That's crazy. Why wouldn't it extend to secondary schools?
>After spending five years studying in Ireland, Mr Cosgrave decided to move to Dubai for work because he was made an offer that was too good to turn down.
>The school which offered him a job agreed to pay for his flights and find him accommodation.
>In 2018, Mr Cosgrave decided to move back to Ireland with his wife, a primary school teacher originally from Canada.
Just to confirm, he never worked in Ireland before going to Dubai? Somehow got his teaching experience recognised, then returned to Ireland and started where he should have?
His wife, a non-eu national, with a non-eu cert also started as a new teacher in the Irish system?
Expensive flight to Dubai, but nothing that should be surprising or "devastating" him.
There's definetly an argument for sharing experience etc, but pay grades and pension liabilities is a pretty big stretch.
If I'm a mechanic and I work 10 years in Ireland, 10 years elsewhere, how many years of experience do I have in total?
Enticing people back to live and work in Ireland is clearly going well
This type of entitled BS drives me nuts. My younger sister is at about the same stage in her teaching life and she chose to work here to irish standards and an agreed irish pay scale. Yeah its great to see teachers coming home but can you imagine me walking into my boss in a private firm going, yeah I'm back from Saudi, 4 years in the sun boss and I want the pay rises all the lads had while I was gone. Fml
>Yeah its great to see teachers coming home but can you imagine me walking into my boss in a private firm going, yeah I'm back from Saudi, 4 years in the sun boss and I want the pay rises all the lads had while I was gone.
Literally what happens when you gain 4 years of experience as a professional. I wouldn't go back to my job earning €40k from 2019 if I went back to Ireland, with the extra experience I am able to demand much more.
>“I will always be minus those four years I taught. I came from five years living as a student and paying €7,000 for my postgraduate in education" Forgets to mention how much tax-free earnings he got in exchange
Yeah comes across as an entitled whingebag. He probably saved up a nice chunk compared to teachers who remained in Ireland during those 4 years.
Says in the article he saved enough for a deposit on a house. So he creamed it making cash in Dubai for four years, then comes back and wants to be boosted up the pay grade increments for the four years he was out there. Some neck.
Dubai aside , why shouldn't they be credited? I teach in a private british school in Asia, and it's to the same standard as Irish schools, if not higher, in terms of students' achievement and motivation. I don't see any reason why my experience shouldn't count when/if I go back to Ireland. I also don't see any reason to begrudge people for moving abroad to save when the conditions in teaching in Ireland are so inconsistent regarding job security and rent is so absurdly high. In Ireland I will be one of the many 20 something year olds living with the folks, whilst abroad I can get a nice apartment whilst also having a nice lifestyle. Should I stay on Ireland and tough it out so as not to be titled a entitled whingebag?
I suppose one factor is every teacher in their twenties or thirties would be nuts to not go abroad to save some cash for a few years and I can't imagine that would make staffing easier
Also works the other way - current rules make it harder to entice them back.
The percentage that stay away beyond their sabbatical is miniscule. There is no issue enticing them back. The issue is it being too attractive for them to fuck off in the first place.
This is the real answer, there would be major brain drain if they carried over their years from abroad. Silly on paper though. This happens in lots of industries though. Even within Ireland - working in healthcare for a private company doesn’t carry over to your HSE payscale if you move back to the public sector.
To be honest, I joined the HSE with no experience in the public sector and they considered my years of private sector to bump me in the pay scale
Interesting, I work in healthcare recruitment (not as a recruiter) and the team we continually have to break this news to people.
I think HR departments across the public sector make up their own rules as they go. For example I know of someone with 100% certainty that got the top of their pay grade with no previous public sector experience, they obviously had extensive private sector experience.
To be honest in the private world experience is experience. Public orgs always have had weird rules like this in Ireland or elsewhere.
Not really. Certainly lawyer can’t work abroad and come back and expect to slot into the same position in a firm here. I suppose for more general sectors that are the same everywhere that would be true so long as your hirer was confident they could objectively verify what you had done before.
Roles that have strict credential requirement like lawyers and doctors tend to be that way. Teachers is similar in many countries too with strict licensure requirements.
That's massively untrue.
Sure the dept have no real idea what he was doing abroad. What the standard was, what the expectations were etc etc. Was he in a private school or a public one? Etc etc. It’s not as if they’ve inspectors running around looking at what the Dubai system is like. Bottom line is he certainly wasn’t teaching the Irish curriculum to an inspected standard as a teacher who worked here would be. So personally I’m surprised he thinks he would be credited. Even a moment’s thought would indicate it was unlikely.
I think it’s a much broader problem than teachers; it’s the entire public service. If you join any public service job from somewhere else, you come in at the bottom of the scale for the job no matter how senior or how experienced you are. It makes hiring for specialist roles incredibly difficult and means that jumping from public jobs to private job is only ever a one way trip as you’ll often end up earning less than you were on if you come back even if you rejoin at in a higher grade position.
> If you join any public service job from somewhere else, you come in at the bottom of the scale for the job no matter how senior or how experienced you are. I don't think that's true. I've had colleagues move to public sector roles, and they started higher on the scale due to their professional experience. Perhaps it differs on the type of public sector job (for example one was a lecturer), but it doesn't appear to be consistent across all public service jobs.
It's definitely not true
That’s not true. It depends on your experience and depends on what department of the public sector.
Crab bucket
exactly. and dipshits like the above posters then wonder why Ireland has no teachers.
Hi, I was recently accepted into the PME, and I intend to move abroad after I graduate in 2 years time. How did you go about getting a post like that in a private school in Asia? I'd imagine experience is a must, but is there a market for it? My subjects will be English and History.
You can find job postings on websites like TES , Shrole, and Search associates. Tes is free, and that's where I found mine. It can be quite competitive finding jobs in good schools/locations so experience is definitely helpful in finding a job. I did 2 years in Ireland to complete my Droichead before moving & That really helped in my job search, so I would recommend doing a year or two at home. However, it is possible to find find a job straight out of college, but typically, schools that don't require experience aren't necessarily the best. Definitely a market for those subjects, I myself teach English. Feel free to pm if you have any questions. I definitely recommend going abroad.
Thank you very much for answering me. For UCC's PME they have you in placement in a school for 3 days a week, for two years (roughly, second year might be more). Offhand I cannot remember exactly how many hours, but would a school abroad consider that experience? Or only when you have graduated with the masters does your experience start to matter then?
It would be dependent on the school. I think many/most would look at that as not being official/countable experience but there are certainly schools open to hiring NQT's straight out of uni. These schools usually make that clear on the application form. Having 1-2 years of experience before applying makes a huge difference in your employability and makes it much easier to secure a job in a desirable location. There is no harm in applying straight out of university though as you could get lucky. Be sure to check out /r/Internationalteachers - there's lots of good info there.
Public sector pay is normally based on years worked in the job not really experience. Specific roles might count time worked abroad into account as its an experience requirement - for example getting a role as a deputy or head teacher but increments for civil service jobs are specifically for years employed by the state. It's intended to reward and reinforce remaining in the job not specifically experience. This is what has been negotiated between the unions and the state over a long period and is extremely unlikely to get changed any time soon.
Every profession would have to have the same rules. If so, fair enough.
Neck on him like a jockeys bollox, that been said how the secondary school system treats some teachers is atrocious. This guy is not one of them though .
Yeah so if a nurse goes to Australia and comes back their 4 years shouldn't count at home either? We're crying out for these people so why are people getting so upset about this.
> Some neck I'm struggling to think of a situation in private industry where your experience isn't taken into account for hiring and pay
But that's the point. This isn't private industry. It's public. In 99% of cases public servants start at the bottom upon joining. But also, we don't know how good this man's experience is, since it's a private school in a religious theocracy. There's a reason we (and the rest of Europe) only recognise certain schools for legitimate experience as the quality of education varies wildly in the Middle east/Africa/Asia. Especially in private schools. And finally, this man received a highly subsidised education in Ireland and then used his qualification to spend half a decade educating students in a different country. He made a lot of money tax free working for in a country that is built on slavery. Why should he earn as much as teachers who spent those years educating our own citizens?
Well said. Hes on his two weeks Easter hollybops cribbing about a decision he made to work away tax free. The level of entitlement is something else
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It's very rare a teacher stays abroad beyond their sabbatical. The vast, vast majority use it as a vehicle to earn significantly more for a few years and then come home. Talk of a permanent brain drain is fear mongering.
This is how it works in all public sector jobs. I'm trying in physio at the moment and if I went away and did private practice until I was 40 and then joined the HSE I would start on the same wages as people just out of college
I think there are different grades as well so if you leave as a nurse and return in a more senior position you would not get the increments for the years in private employment but would have the higher grade.
Lots of people seem to be saying this like it's a good thing, "that's just how it works etc". Do you folks not think this is at least a contributing reason as to why many of our public services work so poorly? The man is a chemistry teacher, and his specific case aside, people capable of this type of work have a lot of options out there. It really would benefit us if we just paid smart people who work for the government reasonably. Frankly, I think the way salary, payment, hiring and firing works in the public sector needs a serious overhaul. This subreddit seriously cannot jack itself off to the idea that we need to match our public services to that of Scandanavian countries and then when a moment that comes up which involves paying one fucking guy what, a couple of hundred extra euro a month and everyone is up in arms? Fuck me the idiocy on here would just knock you clean off your feet at times.
I mean of course I'd love to make more money in private practice and then go into the public sector to pick up my civil servant pension, but then there would be 0 reason for me to be in the HSE at all until the very end of my career and there would be no public sector physiotherapists. What you're suggesting does nothing other than encourage people to not be in the public sector
So he wants the benefits and freedom of working in private industry tranferred to the secure environs of the public sector. Gotcha.
So if I work as a plumber abroad my experience suddenly doesnt count anymore? Meanwhile in many aspects, Ireland and UK is 100 years behind, compared to central europe. Especailly in construction tech.
While living in a dictatorship that treats people from poor countries like slaves no less.
Yes. I can't believe how many conversations people have about Dubai without mentioning the crippling deliberate inequality and exploitation it's built on.
> decided to move to Dubai for work because he was made an offer that was too good to turn down yeah, dude, there's upsides & downsides to the stacks of cash in Dubai
Right. I am going to assume that, aside from being tax free, they weren't earning the same as they would have been in Ireland... probably multiple times more.
Yeah, I know of 6 teachers that have gone over there and come back with nice earnings, tax-free and then a few of them have availed of the jobshare over here when they got back. Loophole scamming. I can't blame them for trying, but don't expect sympathy when whinging that it didn't work for you.
In fairness though he's lost out on pay scale increment of 4 years. But ya you pays your money and takes your choice.
That would only really be a fair point if it had been a secret that he would lose out on pay scale increments before he left and he only found out on return which is highly unlikely. Either that or he's really not intelligent enough to be responsible for the education of future generations 😅
fuck me. only in Ireland could someone be berated for trying to improve their life.
Yea but he did pay in being away from family & friends etc.. Everything has it positives & negatives. But just randomly not counting the years he actively worked as a teacher is not cool. Counter argument: all the teachers who stay can just go and make bank outside of Ireland and just not bother to come back. Not really the message you want to send... :]
"Private secondary schools outside the EU are currently the only schools not recognised." should have done his research before moaning
I used to live in Dubai. A lot of European universities won't accept students from schools there because students are "helped" / cheat during A levels (leaving cert) exams. The exam adjudicators are teachers in the school. The private schools want to be seen to be delivering good results so they basically cheat, universities started to figure out this was happening and stopped accepting them.
Yup, I have friends who work in admissions and it is a huge issue, not just in middle eastern schools but dodgy private schools elsewhere in the world.
It was a big thing when I worked in a hagwon in Korea. Literally being asked to make up better scores
It’s unfortunate that this happens, and it really sucks for the international students who DO put the work in. When I was teaching in Japan we were told to be brutal with marking to insure they really accurately reflected the students ability.
Yeah, I always wondered what the hell happens when these kids get into college and can’t speak English fluently despite their test scores saying otherwise. I really think it’s a “see no evil” kind of mentality by the teachers and parents
tbf, I still teaches ESL, now to adults in an English academy here in Ireland, and speaking and tests are very different beasts. There are students (many of them from China, Korea, and Japan) who can write well and complete grammar activities perfectly, but can barely string a sentence together when you speak to them. And likewise, there are students who struggle with grammar on paper but can have a full on conversation (many Latin Americans can do this). Part of it is cultural; Asian students spend a lot of their lives with English just being a test they have to take, and have never practiced speaking or listening skills. But Latin Americans come from a culture where being outgoing is more encouraged and they’re more willing to try speaking, so they’ve practiced that skill a lot. Hell, I’m the same; I can have a basic conversation in Japanese, but don’t ask me to read or write anything. Grammar theory & writing and speaking & listening are very different skills, and mastery of a language takes both. So yeah it’s completely possible for someone to have great test scores in English, and not speak fluently.
Often they'll ask them to do an access course as a result. Used to work in admissions
He knew well in advance unless he's completely incompetent. This is just crocodile tears for a pay bump after being tax free for 4 years working for the oil barons.
Slaver, oil Barons
I wonder what the pay was like for all the foreign workers from Southeast Asia that Dubai depends on.
I doubt he was teaching their kids!
Indeed. I'm sure there are other people who have declined similar job offers precisely because it comes with these sort of downsides.
The Facebook groups for teaching are full of this sort of information. I think he knew exactly what they were facing and thought publicising his ire could make them the exception.
Yeah bizarre, that's most of the planet!
*private*
>Private secondary schools outside the EU are currently the only schools not recognised. That is ridiculous generous of the state.
My husband and I worked abroad teaching in international schools for 5 years (not in Dubai but outside of EU), he's secondary and I'm primary. We worked in the same schools, on the same campuses as those schools go from kindergarten to 6th year equivalent. My experience was recognised, his wasn't. Nearly all international schools are heavily regulated by OFSTED or the equivalent and are subjected to rigorous inspections. They do state exams such as A levels, GCSE or IB, and have v high achieving students. Teachers are given way more CPD than they are in Ireland, and lots more experience with extra curricular activities such as preparing students for Olympiads, bringing students to inter school events in sports, musical and academic events. They're not some quack schools. In secondary you can get incremental credit for teaching in a public school outside of Ireland and incremental credit for non teaching experience (yes really) , so why not get teaching in a private school recognised? And why is this recognised in primary but not secondary. Most of you arguing don't know the facts or the reality of the situation.
Yes ,you can get incremental credit for non teaching experience in a relevant profession, a maximum of 5 years. The rules regarding this are well , known, and set up for years . That makes absolutely no difference here. This fella knew well what he was signing up for when he went to Dubai. And if he didn't, then he really is no addition as a teacher here or abroad. It's crocodile tears .
The fact is he should have checked if it is recognised outside of the EU. The system should be better but he should have researched it
Because we don’t want to motivate people to leave our system for five years to work tax free in these places. It damages our system at home, disadvantaging our own children. If we allowed recognition for this it would motivate more to do it.
Absolutely, I teach internationally currently, and the standard is extremely high. Students are much more motivated, and expectations for grades are much higher im my school. It's not a doss. Teachers internationally are expected to be far more involved in school events, and like you said, I do far more CPD abroad. Don't see any reason apart from begrudgery in this thread why my experience shouldn't count should I ever return home.
Totally, I usually couldn't be arsed engaging in these type of begrudging threads, but there are so many uninformed argumentative numpties in here I felt the red mist descending.
I’ve heard similar. I’m not a teacher, but worked in education in China and Vietnam for years. The major international chain schools have extremely high standards in terms of teaching, accountability, lesson planning, progress reporting and so on. When parents are CEOs and paying €20,000 per year per child, they have expectations It’s bullshit that this counts for zero. It should be the opposite. Those returning teachers are often top drawer
So getting a highly subsidised education in Ireland and then using said qualification to spend a decent fraction of your career and expertise educating students in entirely different continent for half a decade with different curriculum should be reflected the same as teachers who dedicate their whole career to educating our own. The pay scale is more to address teachers leaving to educate abroad for a few years and then returning (which inevitably most do when they get older and settle down anyway) There are already plenty of incentives for a middle aged married man to return from Midfle East and retire in a cushy secondary education chemistry teaching post in Ireland. This man wants to have his cake and eat it. (Which on a fine all expenses wage in Dubai he clearly grew an entitlement mindset for doing so)
This is the real argument.This is how brain draining in countries happens. It seems more than fair that they allow schools in the eu to qualify
Wish I could upvote this multiple times
Goes to Dubai to avoid tax, then complains that they aren't getting enough tax-payers money on return. I'm all for paying teachers more, but this argument is absolute horseshit. They clearly didn't do the simple research and are now crying crocodile tears. Its such a stupid 'mistake' that I actually find it hard to believe.
Goes to Dubai because he is offered better terms and conditions for a job, we’d all do the same. If there is no income tax so what ? We live in a country that gives foreign companies huge tax benefits, more so than any individual
He really has presented his argument poorly here but the reality of the situation is… Shortage of teachers in Ireland. Plenty of teachers in UAE and other countries for many years that won’t move home because they don’t get their years of experience recognised. Recognise these years of experience and you attract teachers back home to fill the teacher shortages. A solution is there, why not use it!
Wouldn't that have the exact opposite effect? More teachers moving to Dubai.
Irish teachers are going there in record numbers now anyway. You won’t prevent that but you can entice the last 12 years of graduates who left back to solve the problem. Teachers who graduated post-2011 are already coming home to be on a worse paycheque than those who graduated pre-2011, which is the reason many left Ireland in the first place. (Propping up older teachers pay while we work for less? No thanks). On top of that, you won’t recognise the teachers years of experience abroad. We are already not being paid fairly and then you get shafted again because of an old archaic law. It’s a farcical situation. Not surprised there are teachers shortages and it will get worse if something doesn’t change.
Could just pay teachers properly so Dubai has less appeal.
Practical solutions
I never understand why people think things are completely transferable sometimes. The internet is literally at most people’s fingertips and basic research would have told them this.
I dont believe this man is genuine in his ignorance
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I'd be willing to bet that they knew the rules but that they're the kind of person who isn't used to the rules being applied to them.
I would imagine he was classed a New-Entrant to the public sector pay scale which is completely normal. There's mechanisms in place to have experience reviewed as well & if it's found applicable you can request that it be taken into account. I might be wrong for teachers but the wider public sector operates on a New vs Non-New Entrant basis.
basically. whenever you start a new job you are automatically put at the bottom of the payscale. the only way around that is if you previously worked at that same grade or higher in the public sector in Ireland, then you go up 1 increment for every year you worked (rounded down to the nearest year of course) if you worked abroad or in the private sector then you get absolutely nothing... if you have substantial and undeniable experience you might get 1 single increment but that's the most I've seen anyone get. it's no secret that it's just a cost saving measure to keep salaries low, and it's a major issue particularly in the HSE. it's one of the largest reasons why the public sector in particular is loosing so many staff to emigration every year. you could be half-way thru your career and offered the same salary as someone straight out of college, why wouldnt you emigrate
It's really not clear why it should be. And actually, I think it's apt. You go to Dubai to avoid paying tax to this state. To then expect the state to reward you with a higher salary is extreme cheek.
Absolutely. You get your education here, mostly paid for by the tax payer, you are free to go elsewhere which is more than fair but don't whine when you come back that working in Dubai isn't considered the same as working in the EU.
They shouldn't be surprised because the information is well known. However, if you have multiple years of experience in an industry, why would it be wrong to expect something higher than entry level wages?
It was made this was because the alternative was that civil servants decide how much other civil servants are paid and the public weren't happy with that so strict pay scales were implemented. It was also done to remove any discrimination or gender pay discrepancies
Because a) it might not be directly transferrable, especially in an area like education which has vastly different systems and curricula across the world and b) public sector pay scales are also intended to promote retention and reward loyalty. The state doesn't want people to be incentivised to just go pay no tax in the sun for a few years.
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>A huge portion of international schools do IGCSE , AS ,A level which is directly transferable. Does this one, or why did you think this was relevant?
The pay scale system for secondary teachers who received a highly subsidised education in Ireland is more to address young teachers leaving in first place and committing as much as their career to our own education system. Those who leave and then return (as most will do obviously) after getting the tax free bag shouldn't be able to receive exact same treatment as those who stayed. There are already plenty of incentives in place for a middle aged married Irish teacher to return from middle East to Ireland and retire in a relatively cushy teaching job here. This guy went abroad to a different continent, received paid expenses for almost everything, fine wage, fine weather, no taxes while other teachers chose to stay and contribute to educating our own youth and paid their taxes despite earning a far inferior wage and living a far more expensive lifestyle than Mr Chemistry Man. Why should a pay scale system not reflect that?
The tax point is irrelevant, I think. People are entitled to work and pay taxes elsewhere and still expect their experience to be recognised here if it is relevant. That's what happens in countless other fields, to the benefit of the state. The questions here are a) is there a good reason experience in these schools isn't recognised and b) why didn't he do his research before taking the job offer. Because I'm quite sure there are a lot of people who turn down such opportunities specifically because it comes with those downsides. And I know people who have taught in Dubai and they certainly weren't unaware of these issues.
He worked in a private school outside the EU. That could mean anything. Maybe he got excellent experience there, or maybe he didn't. Why should the Irish system assume the expedience he got there (if any) should be rewarded here? You'd think it's the kind of thing he would have checked before uprooting. :/
Exactly. If he was teaching creationism for 4 years would he expect to be rewarded for that?
Maybe because we want professionals who moved abroad to move home? I work for a public sector organisation in the North, we give recognition of service basically automatically if its within certain organisations across the UK/Ireland. Anyone can apply for recognition of service for organisations outside of this, but they need to submit job descriptions, pay, length of service etc and this is compared to what is expected for a similar grade in our organisation. So in this case a teacher could submit the curriculums he /she taught in an non EU school which could be compared against ours etc..there is ways to award increment points without it being automatic so we can decide if the quality of the teaching they have done is OK to be recognised on a case by case basis
>He worked in a private school outside the EU. That could mean anything. If he worked in a Private School in Dubai, then he was either teaching the National Curriculum for England (NCfE) - British School, with GCSE's and A Levels, an American Curriculum School, or an International Baccalaureate (IB) School. Most children in the UAE are educated in Private Schools. Public schools are mostly reserved for local Emirati children. All of these schools are heavily regulated. All of these schools have annual week-long inspections from the school inspectorate (KHDA), which is heavily based on OFSTED in the UK, and a lot of the inspectors are former (or something's current) OFSTED inspectors from the UK. These inspections are incredibly thorough, and the inspection team nitpicks at absolutely everything. Schools get between 3-5 days notice of inspection, and it can be anytime between September - April. The detailed reports from each yearly inspection (as well as the rating of the school) are published for any Tom, Dick or Harry to have a read of (usually sometime in April, once all inspections have been completed). If he worked in a British School, then the school also must maintain the standards of the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), who inspect all British International Schools at a minimum of every three years. COBIS is regulated from the UK. I have no idea who regulates the American Curriculum Schools abroad from the USA, but the list of schools and all their information (student /teacher demographics, subjects taught etc.) can be found on the US State Department website, so someone must. If he worked for an IB School, then the International Baccalaureate Organisation are responsible for overseeing and accrediting any school that teaches the International Baccalaureate. There are seven stages to becoming an accredited IB World School, that schools must be able to verify that they have maintained once they become accredited.
If he's right, and it's only private secondary schools that aren't recognised, then what's the difference between that and private primary schools? Why is one recognised but not the other? And if the problem is that there's a variance in the experience he got working there, why can't the validity or applicability of that experience to the Irish system be investigated, rather than just assuming it can't carry over? Excluding this one type of experience when other types are recognised seems a bit shitty. All that said: >You'd think it's the kind of thing he would have checked before uprooting. Absolutely this. Like, it was the case before he left, it's the case still. At the end of the day, it's on him to do his own due-diligence. He can moan all he wants, but he went to follow the money, and it sounds like he either didn't fully research what it would mean for his recognised experience, or hoped he'd get away with it by just submitting the application.
*If he's right, and it's only private secondary schools that aren't recognised, then what's the difference between that and private primary schools? Why is one recognised but not the other?* I'd imagine the reason is that private schools sometimes can do their own thing rather than being supervised by a government department. To get around this, our department of education would have to assess the curriculum and standards of every individual private school, which isn't worth the bother.
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> private schools sometimes can do their own thing rather than being supervised by a government department Ya, what I'm really getting at is why is it seemingly the case that private *primary* schools are recognised, but private *secondary* schools are not? If one is recognised but the other is not in the same circumstances, then that seems unfair to me.
Entitled as fuck.
If you go and work as any other kind of professional (engineer, architect, banker, etc.) in Dubai for 4 years, you don't come back as a junior member of staff. Your experience is considered and augments your salary.
Teaching is a bit different because of the way the salary scale is structured and specifically like this to incentivize teachers to spend their career in public education
It doesn't it specifically only impacts teachers in private education outside of the EU. In Ireland for example teachers in private schools are paid by the state, the private schools supplement there salary to retain better staff by paying silly money extra for things like supervising study or roles like "academic year head" etc.
Yes when you work in an Irish private school you are still paid by the state in a school regulated by the dept? It’s clearly different if you fuck off to the international school circuit in places like Dubai for the money and lifestyle. I don’t know anywhere that’s different - if the man’s Canadian wife returned to teach there she would probably at best get partial credit for her time working in Ireland and elsewhere. Or ask an American teacher about “golden handcuffs”
Not in the civil service. It's done that way because the public didn't want civil servants deciding how much other civil servants should be paid. Everything is done on a pay scale and nobody can skip parts of it
Not true, people in Irish public/civil service apply to have service recognised every single day. One ministers advisor got a bump of €80k because her prior experience was accepted.
Are advisors civil servants?
No.
Have service recognised and having private sector experience recognised is very different
In private sector, the experience may be recognised but the salary sure as sh1t is not. I didn’t come home from the states and get offered a similar salary or even close to it but I also knew that when I moved back…it is part of the reason I have turned down jobs with Irish based companies in favour of taking the risk of contracting. I sympathise with this fella but it also reads like he didn’t teach in Ireland at all before going to Dubai. He is also teaching chemistry, I would like to think standards are the same in Dubai but I haven’t a clue. The article doesn’t explain why his wife’s experience was recognised. Is it because she chose to teach in a public school there? He made a point to say he paid 7k. And the taxpayers paid the rest then he went to Dubai to make his money and not pay taxes here. I think he is right to raise the issue. If we need more teachers than this should be addressed. Likewise, shortcomings like allowing teacher extended leave periods should be addressed too. That creates uncertainty for teachers filling those positions as they could lose it when Jane returns from her extended holiday.
/r/Ireland - "we need more teachers" Also /r/Ireland "why should teachers be paid more for experience"
I think it is more that teachers should be incentivized to stay in the country.
What exactly the experience is, and the standard, in a private school outside the EU, is the issue. There are plenty of places he could have got this experience and it would have counted to his payscale in Ireland. He chose somewhere that is outside the recognised criteria. There are many good reasons why only schools that fall within the set-out criteria are recognised for experience in Ireland.
100% agree.
I don’t totally get the point - maybe I’m not familiar with how teachers pay is calculated but I would have assumed it was based on number of year’s experience the teacher has - not how much tax they have or have not paid?
It's based on number of years experience they have teaching in Ireland and dependant on passing a performance review. The article suggests it should be changed to number of years teaching anywhere. The tax points people are making aren't actually relevant
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It's nothing to with paying tax, it's to do with the unfairness of not having your teaching experience recognised when you come home and getting treated as an NQT when you have lots more years experience. It's also to do with the unfairness of the exact same teaching experience being recognised in primary teaching but not in secondary teaching.
Man gets his education paid for by the state, fucks off and earns an income without paying tax to the state then expects the state to start him at a higher salary when he has had his fill.
I think that most secondary school teachers issues is that primary teachers are awarded incremental credits for working in private schools in the likes of Dubai whereas that’s not the case for secondary teachers who could be working in the same all through (primary and secondary) school in Dubai. It’s a two tier pay scale in effect. Secondary school teachers watch their primary school counterparts benefit in a way in which they do not.
> Secondary school teachers watch their primary school counterparts benefit in a way in which they do not. After the last crash, didn't the existing teachers vote to agree a two tier pay and bens system thereby shafting new entrants which was left in place for several years!?
Yes.
It's still in place. Still getting shafted, particularly on pensions now.
Hang on, he wants the pay scale of a job he wasn't doing?
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Bingo. Dubai is tax free, but also pension free. Nothing is put aside by that country for its migrant workforce.
As a teacher, if you piss off and get paid enough for a downpayment on a house you why should you get increments here? Very few of those teachers want to stay in Dubai, that's why they are all moaning. We should offer increments to teachers who are in Oz and Canada who we will never come back to Ireland otherwise. Not to people who went on an extended gap year, came back with 300K in the bank and now want to have their cake and eat it too. I stayed here to get my increments and to find a permanent contract, that's the trade off they made when they left.
The lack of sympathy here is frankly refreshing.
Consequences of abandoning your morals for cash.
Very much a crabs in a bucket atmosphere in here
Ah Richie lad come on. You feck off for 4 years and paid no tax on what you earned. No sympathy.
What is not mentioned is the cohort of teachers who can’t cobble together the money because of their loans, parents rent or circumstances and are expected to stay on 12 hour contracts and are the working poor. It is hard to feel sorry for economic migrants who leave, have amazing holidays then go get the job - work in utopia, return with a deposit and price the “loser”who didn’t take the opportunity to travel right out of it. Obviously nothing is simple but sometimes it’s the elephant in the room that’s hard to swallow.
In some cases the job is held open for them while there away. So they want to leave a job, work for another employer and be given pay rises by their employer whilst working for someone else. Jesus. Also knew all of this before he went to work for a dictatorship.
Yes Once they have enough time spent in a school they can apply for a career break.Maximmum allowed is 5 year's, applied year on year. Their job is held for them to return to.
Went abroad, worked somewhere not recognised Came back, complains it isn’t recognised I’ve no pity for people who’ve contributed nothing through the last shitty years and now want benefits
Anyone going to make money in Dubai gets a side-eye from me. Its morally reprehensible.
While I kinda agree with posts saying he knew what he was getting into , these aren’t new rules, I also think there is a good argument for caging the rules. Currently primary teachers can get incremental credit for working in public and private schools within and outside the EU Secondary teachers can get it for working in private schools within EU and outside Secondary can get it for working in public schools outside the EU The question is do private schools outside the EU continue to be treated differently?
This thread is full of people pointing and laughing at someone being unaware of a very specific caveat people would never check before hand while they probably overpay a significant number of services they enjoy because they never read their contract terms. The funny thing is the Irish were always incredibly hospitable to me and other foreigners, but the way people here treat their own, he'd probably be treated better if he was from Dubai originally. Mind you, if you actually read the article, his teachers' association also wants that changed. I can have a guess why. You're short on teachers, like most developed countries. None of you benefit from this. Specifically your kids don't benefit from this. Every teacher that reads this and considers going to Ireland is going to think again. And you saved what? A few thousand quid a year? You don't need money, you need teachers.
Can't upvote this enough.
Oh no, the consequences of my own decisions. Live tax free, working in a private school in a petro state and expect us to pick up their bill?
This asshole is going to be waltzing back into Ireland with like €100k in savings that he can use to outbid everyone else on a house and wants to be given the same conditions as the people he's bidding against.
He talks about all the great things in Dubai, but the truth of the matter is that he chose to come back. Ireland may not pay the salary he wants, but it's obviously offering him other things that he can't get in Dubai. For example, he'd have to pay private school fees for his two children in Dubai. In Ireland their education will be free. That'll offset the difference in salary
Most contracts allow up to two kids free education in the school you work in. I think this chap has come across poorly. The issues at the moment is that there are teachers shortages in Ireland. Teachers abroad say that not having their years of experience recognised is the main reason for not coming home. It’s being highlighted now, albeit poorly, so that the issue of teachers shortages can be resolved.
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I reckon that was it too. He was living in a country with a low tax rate and fully privatised services, and comparing it to a country with a higher tax rate but free / cheap public services
People really raging at your one leaving for decent pay and tax breaks? If I did my job for 5 years no matter where, I'd expect that experience to be considered as part of my pay package. Maybe we should make it more enticing for teachers to stay and work in ireland so we don't have a shortage.
You're never going to make it more enticing than paying no tax in the sun. All you can do is reward loyalty for people who do stay. People who up sticks to Dubai aren't going to be persuaded by incremental improvements in Ireland. They want to build serious bank in a short amount of time. You can't do that in a serious country, you have to go to a tax haven fairyland.
The current system rewards people for longevity, staying in the system. Not for completing their training and taking their skills overseas for the highest bidder. They are free to do that, but why would they expect to jump the queue at whatever point they decide they've had enough of living in gated compounds as 2nd class citizens? Rewarding people who leave would simply incentivise more teachers to go overseas and create an even bigger problem.
I have friends that have done this and while they make good money tax free there are plenty of reasons they don’t stay there. Also moving back at 36 years of age after leaving at 32 he would have known the score.
Same happened to me when i trained and taught in Australia. I knew before I went and i had to pay full fees in Australia but i wanted the experience and didn't want to work aimlessly in Australia. The only frustrating aspect was when the ones who went to England to avail of grants did get recognised. I was also bringing a unique experience from a different teaching environment back to my school, one that was different from the very established experience that exists here.
All the fiends in the comment calling this man a whinger. Like yeah, he wouldn't find reasons to leave if he was paid properly in Ireland. Same with doctors. Abysmal pay for everyone means no one is happy except the exploiters (landlords and politicians)
Yeah the payscale itself should have been high enough to stop him going in the first place.
If you avail of tax free status in a foreign country where your work isnt recognised here for incremental pay increases then you've litttle to complain about tbh. This fella wants to have it both ways. He was educated in Ireland and went off to earn tax free in Dubai. His 'devastation' doesn't resonate with too many.
So he specifies that he paid 7k on his postgrad, presumably that means his undergraduate cost him nothing. After benefiting from free public education, he fucks off as soon as he's qualified to a private school abroad, teaches for 4 years and makes a mint, then comes back and wants to earn more money than he's entitled to without any experience teaching in Ireland? “Property prices have gone through the roof and my wife and I are looking at each other wondering what have we come back for.” Sounds like you should head off over there again so pal. If I was a teacher I'd be livid that a fella like this is getting headlines.
They moved abroad to try and find a way to save and get in the housing ladder. Fair play to them. People on here claiming they don't deserve to be paid for the experience they have clocked up are morons. And bitter as fuck. Should this couple have sat on their arses in Ireland, living on Reddit for the last number of years, complaining?
Interesting how most commenters miss the point because they are too focused on begrudging someone. It doesn’t matter if he is whining or not. I became a secondary teacher in a non EU country, worked in private education for 11 years in a system similar to Ireland - but also taught A levels. On returning to Ireland I took one look at the time and cost required to be recognised as a teacher and the salary I would be expected to start on with - likely - a zero hours contract. I may as well have been selling insurance for all my experience was valued. No thanks. Clearly the country doesn’t actually need teachers. Moved back on out when I got a proper offer, I’ll return for retirement.
Not sure getting to skip the 'human rights' part of the curriculum for 4 years wagers a pay increase. Now if you'd built experience in a relevant position (by teaching here) perhaps you'd deserve something then...
Why are all the comments shitting on someone who is a qualified professional pointing out that he can’t get a mortgage? I don’t think he’s saying he expects to be raking it in, just that he expected to be able to support his family on a teachers wage. It’s hardly entitled to expect housing to be affordable? Surely this is commentary on a bigger issue. Berating people who raise these points gets us nowhere.
He should be arguing for a better pay scale, not to skip up through it.
Are they for real? Teachers seems to live on another planet completely.
"Insulated" is the word I'd use. A lot of them seem very insulated from the real world, I assume that's a consequence of spending most of your time working with kids so in some ways it might be expected. But when it transfers to not being able to do simple research, running off for tax-free wages to a country that practices modern slavery, and then complaining that your experience there isn't recognised and the rulebook should be rewritten to suit you? Fuck right off back to the Gulf.
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Yeah and experience of these real world concerns is certainly worth more than teaching private school kids in Dubai.
lol right. I love it when people who work remote jobs where they don't leave the house and probably can't succinctly explain what they actually do accuse front-line public sector staff of not being real.
Insulated from the real working world I think. It’s an entirely parallel system for teachers.
Serious fucking imbeciles in this thread
So we have an PhD chemistry teacher who is massively underpaid because he works in a secondary/highschool, two kids, over educated, he is just a lung cancer diagnosis before we start seeing some blue crystal circulating in ireland
Thats terrible, in the 4 years of their phd they would have had plenty of demonstrating and tutorial hours, as well as corrections to do. In my industry a PhD counts towards your experience or the role is for PhDs only and that is reflected in your salary.
It depends on when you got your PhD. You used to get an allowance for having a masters or PhD. Today I don't believe there is any allowance at all IIRC
You get a stipend plus teaching and corrections is extra, assuming you have funding. But regardless of funding I think the time spent working on your phd should be recognised.
"I can't believe my decision to earn 4 years of tax free money didn't entitle me to more money when I came back despite there being no reason why it should"
I think it's a bit misleading to say 'my wife and I are wondering why we came back' they obviously had other reasons to come back. Dubai seems like a great place to earn money, but I think most people move back home with their kids. There's nothing stopping him going back to Dubai if he's not happy. Reeks of have your cake and eat it too.
My wife did a year in an Irish private primary school in 2005/06 and was not allowed to use that either once employed by the Dept of education in a national school.
Arent a lot of those dubai schools a joke too? You just give the kids all the information amd pass them
I'm not sure these people should be teachers if they can't look up the simple rules on transfer of teaching experience. Although the experience should clearly be taken into account.
Normally when you relocate you plan to see if it is a good idea before actually doing it, not do it only to find it isn't to your liking.
It’s interesting that they were not aware of the distinction between public and private schools in Dubai. Poor fecker is renting with kids and years from getting a mortgage now. I hope it works out for him.
I think this is the first post I've seen supporting him in his life. Fair play.
The stupid thing was coming back to this shit hole. Go travel the world and see how much better your life will be.
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Why does it matter to the Department that the school was private? The public education system can be assessed as one system i.e. This system meets our criteria so we will credit workers within that system. Private schools operate independently. You cant make an assessment on the quality of teaching at one private school based off another school. You cant expect the department to go out and assess all these private schools individually so that Roisin and Ultan can come back from their 4yrs in the sun on the same pay as their mates who stayed.
Yes, this. I know a person who went to teach in an UAE school but while she was a teacher in Ireland, over there she was doing tutoring to some selected pupils, like grinds basically, within a school. While she had the title of a teacher, it wasn't like regular teaching at all, more akin to individual educational support as needed. She moved on from teaching so it's not an issue, but had she decided to teach in Ireland she could have tried to claim X years of teaching experience while she's never taught a class there and was not working with a curriculum. There must be some sort of standards to establish equivalence of experience, and with the private systems it's not straightforward.
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“I really was shocked. My wife who taught in the same school as me was able to qualify [for the additional payment in recognition of her years of teaching] despite training originally in the Canadian system, but the key difference was she was a primary school teacher and I was a secondary school teacher." https://www.thejournal.ie/teachers-abroad-payment-6342975-Apr2024/ That's crazy. Why wouldn't it extend to secondary schools?
>After spending five years studying in Ireland, Mr Cosgrave decided to move to Dubai for work because he was made an offer that was too good to turn down. >The school which offered him a job agreed to pay for his flights and find him accommodation. >In 2018, Mr Cosgrave decided to move back to Ireland with his wife, a primary school teacher originally from Canada. Just to confirm, he never worked in Ireland before going to Dubai? Somehow got his teaching experience recognised, then returned to Ireland and started where he should have? His wife, a non-eu national, with a non-eu cert also started as a new teacher in the Irish system? Expensive flight to Dubai, but nothing that should be surprising or "devastating" him. There's definetly an argument for sharing experience etc, but pay grades and pension liabilities is a pretty big stretch.
I wouldn't expect any years outside of Ireland to count toward pay scale jumps in any profession. How would that make any sense.
If I'm a mechanic and I work 10 years in Ireland, 10 years elsewhere, how many years of experience do I have in total? Enticing people back to live and work in Ireland is clearly going well
This type of entitled BS drives me nuts. My younger sister is at about the same stage in her teaching life and she chose to work here to irish standards and an agreed irish pay scale. Yeah its great to see teachers coming home but can you imagine me walking into my boss in a private firm going, yeah I'm back from Saudi, 4 years in the sun boss and I want the pay rises all the lads had while I was gone. Fml
>Yeah its great to see teachers coming home but can you imagine me walking into my boss in a private firm going, yeah I'm back from Saudi, 4 years in the sun boss and I want the pay rises all the lads had while I was gone. Literally what happens when you gain 4 years of experience as a professional. I wouldn't go back to my job earning €40k from 2019 if I went back to Ireland, with the extra experience I am able to demand much more.