Hi,

I sincerely have tried to google but didn't get very far...

Does anyone know if there is discussion in the wider swiss community about annual pay increases for teacher's salaries ?

I went looking for similar in my home country (Australia) and the generally accepted pay rise is about 5% per year. That's built into the awards (payscales) for both government, and independent/private/church schools.

Does anyone know if there is something similar for Switzerland - Zurich in particular ? What about in the media (back home I'd likely find media articles announcing that a new award has been issued for teachers, and it represents a pay increase of 5%, for example)... ?

Is there a general 'public' discussion about pay and conditions - in the media, in educational circles - are there other professions where a pay increase is expected each year ?

There is a payscale for each canton. Actually it is not a Pay raise but a adjustment, it's minimal but regular. No special treatments. But some cantons make adjustments so that the young teachers get paid better quicker. The system is quite locked. Ask your school principal or canton school authorities which category scale applies to you and where you are on it. It depends also if the last changes have been implied or not where your are or wish to be (I only remember the scale levels are different and the 3% increase is secured under certains circompstances, it's a question of internal evaluation and canton budgeting). That implies however that you are officially recognised teacher, it's not automatical coming from abroad.

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Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Pea, look here, this is my canton. Once you become a gov contracted teacher, not one paid by hour and employed for more than a year, there is an increase. See this chart (your canton will have it public too, try sites for Ped Uni, or cantonal dept of edu). I think private schools, international schools and anything else that is not supervised/paid by canton will not see these yearly increases, but I could be wrong.

Thanks, on those scales the steps are mostly 3% or 5% per year.

I know that government teachers don't necessarily go upwards every year, there's some sort of assessment process involved with some steps...