Pay revision - how true is it?

I must say I'm very glad that I got the a.m. session next year. And P3 at that. And two classes to teach in all! I've never had such a good deal since I started teaching. Imagine being dumped into a timetable of 8 classes, teaching 6 subjects when you're all new and green. It's definitely going to be an easy time for me. :)

The news has it that teachers' pay revision is going to be upward. However, upon learning that it's going to be 'performance-based', most of us know that it's bad news. It'll just encourage more backstabbing and politics. And it's not going to help teachers become better in teaching, or more 'effective' - the buzz word on one of the forums.

I'd thought perhaps the pay increment would be pegged to the academic qualifications instead of the fixed rate for all grads. Very disappointed with the news actually. But I've already prepared myself: when the news concerns teachers alone, it's never going to be good news.

To think I went for a degree so that my pay increment will stop being so pathetic. I'll only have a graduate increment once, before the pay revision kicks in in April 2008. Sometimes it's hard not to think that you're a jinx in the workforce when everytime you start working, something bad happens.

I still remember when I finally decided to start holding a decent office job back in 1999. The government initiated the 10% cut in the employer's CPF contribution just before I got my first pay. The 20% employer's contribution is never quite reinstated since then.

After I graduated from the Dip Ed program and about to start working, and earnestly anticipated the one-time increment from an untrained to trained teacher, the economy was met with the 'Economic Crisis'. We had a wage-freeze. Only a nominal increment was given.

I went for my degree. Finally, when I emerged from the program victoriously, envisioning that fixed increment that I will get forever and ever, the government wants our pay increment to be pegged with our 'performance', when we all know that 'performance' is just a smoke screen for the politics game.

It's hard not to think that you just don't have the luck with money. I know I don't have the 'career line' on my palm, but I've never quite believed in it. Or perhaps, subconsciously, I do believe in it and that's why my fate is so.

It's frustrating, definitely.