Speaking of education, it should be a harder industry to get into, and teachers should get paid more and made sure they are 'up to snuff'. My reasoning is that both high schools I went to had a lot of 'dead weight' teachers. That did little and didn't know the material well let alone how to teach it. They should get sacked and the better teachers should get paid more as a result.

Actually, this problem would solve itself IF teachers were paid more.

Education has a huge problem in attracting people into the field. The wages are lower than equivalent professions, and in some fields (like SCIENCE) there is much more money to be made elsewhere. The problem with just saying "HEY LET'S GET BETTER TEACHERS" is that you need to give perks in order to get people to sign up, and that costs a lot of cash.

Teachers have to go to universities to train to be teachers and there are only a certain number of places available, so there's always competition. There's even more competition now due to the recession and private sector jobs being less available than they were, so the entry requirements have gone up across the board. The problem is they're only the ACADEMIC requirements. Being an educator involves a lot more than just knowing the subject - it requires an understanding of pedagogy, a huge patience and compassion, and a variety of other things that make you suitable/not suitable. It's harder to monitor those things until after someone's been accepted onto a course - an interview and some on-the-day tests.

More cash would mean better quality applicants overall, which would force weaker teachers out as they'd be up against TOP DOGS. However, what about a weak teacher who happens to be incredibly pastoral based and has great bonds with students and good rapport with everyone? There's many types of useful teacher!

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY APPROVE OF YOUR "TEACHERS SHOULD BE PAID MORE" STANCE THOUGH COMRADE!!!