阅读理解Education as a career or a jobDo you want to become a teacher？ If you do, then y

阅读理解Education as a career or a job

Do you want to become a teacher？ If you do, then you should recognise that in England, the US and other Western countries, the term •teacher' covers a wide range of jobs which can be seen as forming an occupational hierarchy ranging from high status, high income careers to lower paid positions.

At all levels of education, university, school and kindergarten, there are a mixture of well paid, secure careers with prornotional prospects and casual jobs with no prospects. In education, if a job is a secure one, it is called tenured. If it is casual work, it is called non-tenured. Non-tenured jobs in education are paid well whilst the person is working; but out of the semester, i. e. for twelve or fourteen weeks of the year, the worker gets no employment. The tenured teacher or lecturer gets paid for every week of the year, even over the long school or university holidays. They also get extra payments that the non-tenured people do not receive. For example, they receive contributions from their employer that go towards their superannuation fund. They also get paid if they become ill or need maternity leave. When the teacher or lecturer is tenured, she or he is regarded as having a career, but the non-tenured worker is often regarded as just having a job.

The level of academic qualification and the extent of teaching experience will largely determine where a person is placed in the teaching hierarchy. However, in England now the government is asking universities to be more market-oriented and to plan research pmjects and create courses that will sell on the open market. Now that universities in England are o moving toward a more market oriented status, they are trying to find ways to save money and there is great pressure to employ more lecturers on a casual not a tenured basis.

Why do people want to become lecrurers or teachers？ There is a lot of in the study of occupational choice. Many occupations have been studied to determine why people chose a particular occupation. In education, two general findings emerged: some people feel that they have a mission to teach and want to be a successful teacher, whereas others have a purely instrumental approach. An instrumental approach means that teacbing is chosen not to fulfill a lifetime ambition but just as way of earning a living. This instrumental approach is likely to develop with the casuälisation of education.