A clever nation needs its teacher shortage filled, pronto (Age letter, NAOMI SCHWARTZ, Brunswick)

As a bemused member of the general public, I read The Sunday Age editorial, "A clever nation needs its teacher shortage filled, pronto" (May 25) with surprise and a degree of shock. How is it that we are hearing about teacher shortages and a fast ageing workforce just a fortnight after the government, the media and the Australian Education Union all proclaimed Victorian teachers as "the highest paid in the country"? Those greedy teachers are rolling in it, and yet we still can't staff our schools? Or maybe, since the "largest grouping of teachers in Victorian schools is those aged 50 to 54", the problem is that young people these days are just plain lazy. But as a talented young teacher in her eighth year in the profession, with two degrees and head of a department in a large inner-city high school, I can answer the question with ease. It's an issue of fair pay. It takes more than 11 years to reach the top pay rate, and in the meantime I earn a paltry percentage of what my interstate colleagues do - regardless of life experience, education or extra responsibilities in my school. Next year, as a teacher with nine years' classroom experience, I'll be $13,000 behind my interstate colleagues, and that's after the fabulous "agreement" with the State Government. I am not greedy. I am not lazy. I am angry and I am the future of your education system.