The Press Tuesday, January 3, 1928. University Teachers.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19198, 3 January 1928, Page 10

The Press Tuesday, January 3, 1928. University Teachers.

Some of our recent observations upon the deplorably inadequate salaries paid to teachers at the University Collegesare circulating through the newspapers, and we shoufd like to think that our contemporaries will take up this matter and press it forward until some remedy is found for a genuine grievance. It is not alone that the professors, and still more the senior lecturers and assistants, are suffering injustice: the country itself must suffer if the rewards of University teaching are not made sufficient to attract the best talent. The average salary of the University professor in New Zealand is £BSO. Thirty or forty years ago it was over £IOOO, and in those days £IOOO was worth far more than it is now. It has been calculated that the present average salary of £BSO has only three-fifths of the purchasing power of £7OO in the year 1900, and that if the professor of to-day were to receive the same real emolument as in 1900, he would be paid nearly £I4OO. These are deplorable figures, but even more deplorable are those relating to the sub-professorial teaching staffs in University Colleges. The average salary of the lecturers and assistant-lecturers is £4OB. These are all highly qualified" men who have taken high honours in their subjects. Some have taken doctorates, and most have done or are doing research work besides teaching to the highest University standard. Yet they are paid less than the assistant teachers in training colleges or secondary schools or technical schools. It scarcely needs to be said that New Zealand is preeminent amongst the British Dominions in this wretched want of appreciation of what is due to the men upon whom the future of the country depends in no small degree. The explanation, we think, must be this: that although our public men boast loudly of the devotion of the Dominion to education and of the excellence of its education system, the Dominion and its public men arc not sufficiently educated to realise that technical schools and training colleges are much less important in the nation's life than the University Colleges. Representations have been made to the Government by the University Teachers' Association, and although these representations were sympathetically heard, no hope of relief was held out. And yet the extra cost of paying the University teachers adequately would be comparatively small—about £24,000 a year to begin with, and about £35,000 ultimately. When one considers the vast sums which the Government is able to spend on material things, and the generosity with which it treats the Public Service, it is incomprehensible that it does not forthwith take steps to ensure just treatment to the University teachers. What makes the case worse is the fact that the superannuation scheme forced upon these teachers amounts almost to robbery. The professors and lecturers are not numerous enough to be able to exercise any influence upon the politicians: if they were, our duty might, become the duty of protest against the too-lavish outpouring of money into their pockets. But the case for better treatment is so strong and clear that it ought to appeal to the good feeling of the Government, which in any case' cannot with a good conscience ignore the strong representations made by the Royal Commission on University Education.