The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24. 1903. THE TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION FUND.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 280, 24 November 1903, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24. 1903. THE TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION FUND.

For me cause that lacks assistance. For the ivrony that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The report of the Government Insurance Actuary upon the proposed scheme for a teachers' superannuation fund cannot be regarded as encouraging. The bill dealing with this matter provides that all teachers shall contribute from five to ten per cent, of their salaries towards the fund, that after a, certain number of years of service contributions shall cease, and that after a certain age limit is reached teachers shall retire ou a pension calculated on from one-sixtieth to one-eightieth of their income multiplied by the years of service. Various alterations in detail h»e been suggested by the New Zealand Educational Institute, and other representative bodies of teachers, but on the whole the teachers of the colony are strongly in favour of some such pension scheme. We have already expressed our approval of the principle embodied in the Teachers' Superannuation Bill, and so long as it seemed possible to carry out these proposals without making too heavy a call upon the public funds we have given them our hearty support. But we fear that the report on the financial basis of the scheme now submitted to Parliament will render it necessary either to modify the bill radically, or to put the project on one side for an indefinite time to come.

The idea of a. superannuation fund for teachers is, as we have said, an admirable one. But viewed by the cold light.

of commercial criticism, we can see little ground for expecting the adoption of the .system on the line* already indicated. The present value of the. share of new participants in the fund is greater tliun the present value of their contributions, so that for every

man or woman entering the service in future the country will have to maki" up a deficiency. As to teachers now in the service, it seems that there is already a visible deficit of something between £450,000 and £500,000. The

amount required at once on account of 1338 female teachers is £128,000. In the case of male teachers the deficit, without considering allowances for children, already amounts to about £300,000 —that ia to' say, the amount to be provided for them from the pension fund, when they can claim it, will be some £300,000 more than their grosa contributions. As every new teacher will increase the total deficit, it is not easy to say what the aggregate cost of the fund would l>e to the country. But it is clear that from the financial standpoint the amount to be made up would soon become an enormous and intolerable burden. Pension funds, it must be remembered, tend as a rule to fall below their estimated dimensions. Our police superannuation fund, for example, at present shows a deficiency of £190,000, and the Government actuary has calculated that this will have increased to £215,000 during the next three yeax'S. This result was certainly not anticipated when the scheme was adopted, and we need not attempt to prophesy what sum the country might be eventually called upon to guarantee, for the Teachers' Superannuation Fund on the lines of this bill. But we have said enough to show that the colony is not justified in accepting so heavy a responsibility. A present deficit of nearly half a million sterling, with the certainty of increase rather than reduction, is a feature that at once removes the scheme from the region of practical politics. If the teachers throughout the colony desire that Wch a fund should be formed, they must be prepared to accept smaller pensions or contribute a larger proportion of their salaries towards them. Considering the financial position of the colony, and the heavy calls upon the public funds, it is neither wise nor just to promote an 'arrangement wheh would weigh so heavily upon the whole community. Already our primary education system costs the country considerably over half a million ft year—quite onequarter of our total Customs revenue. Commercially the system brings in-no-thing, and however valuable it may be we..are not justified in increasing this constant drain upon our resources unless the teachers are prepared to do much more than they have already offered in the way of helping themselves.