Teaching can offer meaning, dignity and a profound sense of responsibility to others. But devotion to the work should never become an excuse for poor pay, insecurity or burnout.

Victorian teachers are currently voting on a new pay offer from the state government ahead of a planned 24-hour strike on 19 August**.** The dispute focuses on salaries, workloads and enterprise bargaining. But it also raises a deeper question. Why do so many people remain in a profession that is so demanding and poorly paid?

A few weeks ago, I watched a Facebook video of one of my favourite teachers retiring after working for more than four decades at the same school. The four-minute clip shows him walking through what seems like an endless guard of honour formed by students and staff. As I watched the clip, I was struck by the way my former teacher sought eye contact with everyone he passed, making each person feel as though they alone mattered. Decades earlier, he had made me feel the same way.

It is almost a cliché to say that teachers inspire the next generation. Yet if people really believed this, teachers would enjoy far greater status and financial reward. This is plainly not the case. The base salary for a secondary teacher in Victoria is $79,589, well under the Australian average yearly wage of $106,657. At universities in Victoria, things are much worse. Between 50 and 80 per cent of undergraduate teaching at Australian universities is undertaken by casual or........

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