Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

PART 2: ITALY
107
Teachers can also raise their salaries by taking on special tasks and responsibilities
within the school (such as for assessment and evaluation, school–family relationships,
and department co-ordination). The school principal assigns these responsibilities
according to decisions made by the School Teacher Council.
Relative to other OECD member countries, teachers in Italy earn lower than average
salaries at all levels. At the lower-secondary level, for example, beginning Italian teachers
in 2003 earned $US25,602, compared to the OECD average of $26,241 (using purchasing
power parity). Teachers in Italy with 15 years of experience and minimum training
earned $31,304 compared to the OECD average of $35,876. Consequently, while OECD
beginning salaries were only 2% higher than those of Italian teachers, OECD teachers
with 15 years of experience earned almost 15% more than Italian teachers with the same
degree of experience and training (OECD, 2005). However, because Italian teachers
typically work a lower number of hours than the OECD average, they actually compare
relatively well with OECD and European Union (EU) teachers in terms of hourly wages.
In fact, beginning Italian teachers in 2000 earned more per hour ($37) than the OECD
average of $32.60 and the EU average of $35.90.
Teachers’ salaries as a percentage of GDP per capita—a measure of the value of teachers
relative to economy-wide resources—decreased between 1993 and 2000, indicating
an implicit devaluation of teaching services in Italy over this period. For example, a
starting lower-secondary teacher in 1993 earned 1.07 times the GDP per capita, while a
new teacher in 2001 earned 0.95 times the GDP per capita. At the same time, however,
the real salaries of lower-secondary teachers increased by 11% between 1996 and
2003, indicating that, despite the decrease in relative salaries, absolute salaries actually
increased over this period (OECD, 2005).
Although paid relatively low salaries, teachers in Italy compared to Italian workers in
the private sector enjoy many non-pecuniary benefits, including employment security,
lower working hours than the European average, low student–teacher ratios, relatively
good retirement benefits, and generally high maternity- and sick-leave protections.
Moreover, according to a 1994 poll of Italian public employees, teachers ranked highest
in terms of the percentage (62.3%) of respondents with higher or average satisfaction
regarding their working conditions.
In our analysis of the Survey of Italian Households’ Income and Wealth data, we could
only estimate the earnings of individuals who were trained as teachers, not those who
worked as teachers. We compared these earnings to those of individuals trained in other
fields. Many older Italian (mainly primary) teachers only have secondary-level (normal
school) education, which is one reason why Italian teachers seem to earn lower relative
incomes compared to teachers in other OECD countries. However, in terms of today’s
labor market, we need to focus on the comparative salaries of teachers with university
education because that is the requirement young teachers must now meet. Thus, in the
tables below (31 and 32), we show the salaries of individuals trained as teachers at the
secondary and university level compared to the salaries of individuals trained in other
fields. However, in the graphs (Figures 34 to 37), we compare only those individuals
trained at the university level.