What have IT and teaching got in common? That's easy. Professionals in both fields are often ridiculed, ridiculously poorly paid at first, and beholden to the poorly educated — in IT's case, the middle management.
Teachers and techies also share a chronic lack of appreciation. The work of the humble IT professional mostly goes unnoticed until something goes wrong, a file gets lost, an email goes astray or a virus gobbles the central database. Teachers are similarly ignored and undervalued, enjoying a daily diet of obnoxious and sometimes dangerous youths intent on creating havoc while deflecting as much knowledge as possible.
Despite those similarities, those in charge of encouraging employment in the two fields have very different ideas on what constitutes a recruitment strategy. This week, the government-owned Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDAS) produced a highly questionable piece of research that claimed teaching was the least boring career option for graduates — orders of magnitude more stimulating than IT, scientific research or working in the media. While teaching scored just 4/10 on the Workforce Boredom Index, IT and Telecoms clocked in with 7.5.
We're still waiting to find out where writing dubious press releases is ranked, but perhaps we can guess. Starting from the perspective that all work is inherently dull, but teaching is the least painful option, is a notably cynical approach to selling a profession. Whoever thought it up should perhaps reconsider their career options.
But while attempts to boost the teaching profession may have been clumsily executed, a strategy this week to deliver some much-needed appreciation to the IT crowd was more encouraging. Yes, today is Sysadmin Day, a mere year since the last one and already an occasion of national rejoicing only slightly less fervent than the Festival of St Eloi and the Possessed Horse.
It may be mildly twee, but the League of Professional System Administrators has chosen a benign way of highlighting the plight of their unsung profession. One day every year, the group says, thank the person who toils to keep your email server running, who maintains your Web page, who patches up your ancient laptop. Make the techie in your life feel special.
We'd suggest that whoever thought up, or more accurately didn't think nearly enough about, the clumsy Workforce Boredom Index could learn something from Sysadmin Day. Class dismissed.
Talkback
What a waste of time and money
The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is core charter is ‘to secure and effective school workforce that improves children’s life chances’.
Very inspiring and important, so how does this related to the ludicrous Workforce Boredom Index, that the TDA’s press office and PR agency (Band and Brown) have been spruiking to the media?
Amazingly, the index claims exciting creative industries like advertising are boring and that surprise, surprise, teachers are the least bored professionals and they also happen to have the highest levels of concentration and absorption in their daily tasks.
What utter bollocks! Firstly dreaming up this index is simply a ploy by the TDA to try and generate some positive press about teaching. When we spoke to the TDA, their spokesperson waffled on, saying that this would help them stand out in the competitive jobs market. Given the paucity of coverage that will have actually reached their target audience how the TDA can justify the £15k they spent on this exercise? About the only mainstream media outlets that carried the story were the Scotsman (circulation 70k) and Education Guardian, whose readers are for the most part already teachers. We are not the only ones to dismiss this puffery, with ZDnet the well respected technology website describing it as ‘ a highly questionable piece of research’ coupled to a ‘dubious press release’.
Bravo, and we totally agree with their opinion that, ‘Whoever thought it (the article) up, should perhaps reconsider their own career options’.
What the TDA aren’t so keen on discussing is why the failure rate for students undertaking a PGSE is just 1% - that’s right 99% pass an amazing statistic even in the annals of dubious educational statistics.
The TDA’s pitch is at the opposite end of the scale from research done by Select Education, that showed that 60% of supply teachers planned to stay in the job for another three years with most young full-time teachers, saying they definitely planned leave the profession before 40.
The TDA spent £667.5m last year and so wasting £15k hardly seems a substantive issue, but if they really want to attract and retain teachers over the longer term, then being honest about the merits and drawbacks of the profession is far more likely to be successful than pathetic PR stunts.
The TDA’s senior management team should get rid of the media buffoons who came up with this idea and start focus on how to deliver their core charter. A good first step might be to rethink the benefits of having an external media advisor, who every time we have spoken to them can’t answer any questions and simply refer us back to the TDA’s Press Office. Money for old rope, but hardly good value for the application of your taxes!
• www.tda.gov.uk
• www.bbpr.com