TEACHERS' SALARIES COMMISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 95, 23 April 1901, Page 2

TEACHERS' SALARIES COMMISSION.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Monday

The first meeting of the Teachers' Salaries Commission was held to-day. It was decided that the proceedings should be open to the press. The Commissioners resolved to hold sittings in the various educational districts of the colony. Mr. G. Hogben, Secretary for Education, said he was authorised to appear before the Commission and give it all the assistance in his power. He laid before the Commission a memorandum, prepared some months ago for the Minister for Education, in the form of a suggested colonial scale of staff and salaries. He urged that the capitation basis of payments to boards would render a colonial scale impossible, and that they could not get a uniform scale of salaries without a uniform scale of staff. He had no intention whatever of any policy that should touch the discretion of the boards in saying what kind of teachers they should employ, the only difference being that the Government would lay down what staff there should be, and what each teacher should be paid. The scheme had not been adopted by the Government. It was simply a suggestion. It was, he added, very much better under such a scheme for the boards, and not the Department, to pay the teachers. The Commission then adjourned until to-morrow morning.