Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

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TEACHER PAY AND STUDENT MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT
Teacher salaries
Teachers in Switzerland generally are paid according to a salary scale that corresponds
to the school level in which they teach and their initial education. Advancement for an
individual teacher occurs within their initial salary scale and typically depends only
on years of service. The formal employer of teachers in Switzerland is the canton or
the commune (OECD, 2004a). Terms of employment, including the salary scale, is
therefore determined by one of the two. Also, teachers are not offered a lifetime contract,
a practice that guards against teachers becoming complacent and motivates them to
continuously improve their performance. In general, teachers’ salaries for a particular
set of characteristics are set uniformly within a canton, but there is considerable
variation across cantons to reflect differences in number of lessons taught and costs of
living (OECD, 2004a).
Teachers’ working time is defined in terms of teaching hours. These vary by canton,
from 1,900 hours to 2,000 hours per year. On average, the hours are broken down as
follows: classroom-based teaching (50%), preparation (23%), planning and evaluation
(11%), administration and counseling (8%), and continuing education and joint
activities (8%) (OECD, 2004a).
In the early 2000s, primary school teachers earned less than teachers at higher levels, but
at $US35,059 per annum, their starting salary was nevertheless the second highest among
the commensurate salaries of all OECD countries. The starting salaries of secondary
teachers and upper-secondary teachers, which were $US41,358 and $US49,484,
respectively, ranked the highest among the starting salaries for teachers of all OECD
countries except Luxembourg (OECD, 2004a). This situation had not changed by 2007
(OECD, 2007).
Some cantons, such as Zürich and St. Gallen, have moved away from seniority-based pay
to pay based on performance. This development is a recent one. In both cantons, salary
increments are provided over a period of years rather than on the basis of annual reviews
of work. In Zürich, the assessment includes classroom observation, an interview with
the teacher being evaluated, and a report describing his or her pedagogical approach.
In St. Gallen, the assessment focuses on three skill areas: organization and delivery of
lessons; interactions with students, parents, and teachers; and participation in in-service
professional development. Neither place emphasizes subject-specific merit pay.
An analysis of salaries conducted early this decade and taking into account hours of
work, age, professional development, experience, geographic region, and gender, showed
teachers’ salaries comparing favorably with salaries in other professions (OECD, 2004a).
Teachers’ salaries in comparison to GDP per capita were high. At the lower-secondary
level, for instance, a comparison of the salaries of teachers who had been teaching for 15
years with GDP per capita placed Switzerland in third place among 29 OECD countries.
Pay in certain sectors, such as finance and insurance, were higher, but in other sectors,
such as wholesale and the retail trade, hospitality, health, and social work, pay levels
were lower (OECD, 2004b). No differences in salary by gender were evident. However,
because there are more male teachers than female teachers in the lower-secondary and
upper-secondary levels of the school system, and given that the pay is higher in these
sectors of the education system than in the primary sector, the average male teacher is
likely to earn more than his female counterpart.
Tables 43 and 44 and Figures 58 to 61 show the median salaries of Swiss teachers
compared to the salaries of Swiss mathematics-oriented professionals for two years,
1996 and 2004.