SALARY SCALE OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27626, 5 April 1955, Page 13

SALARY SCALE OF TEACHERS

Mr Algie’s Decision

Contested

DEPUTATION TO MEET PRIME MINISTER

Representatives of New Zealand teachers will meet the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) “as soon as an appointment can be fixed,” to discuss the decision of the Minister of Education (Mr a R. M. Algie) that teachers shall not share in the salary increases granted other Government employees. A leading article in the latest issue of “National Education,” official journal of the New Zealand Educational Institute, says that “only in exceptional circumstances would the executive tof the Institute] go over the head of the Minister of Education in this matter. “The fact that Mr Holland has to , a deputation from the institute la not in itself, of course, anything to build hopes upon," the article Baid. “It does, however, offer an important opportunity for redressing a grave wrong done to teachers, an opportunity of which the Dominion Executive will take the fullest advantage.

The issues put before Mr Holland wer ,e simple the article said—they sould«is5 ould «i$ expressed in the one question: Were the salaries of State employees not merely below but so much below those of teachers that it required two separate increases—a graduated rise in the salaries of senior lons ran gi n g to approximately £lOO a year and also an addition of approximately £lB a year to all rates —to bring them to equality with those of teachers?” “Teachers Were Not Warned” “Mr Algie and his colleagues say yes to this question, without giving any adequate ground for the reply and in particular, without explaining why, when Order No. 60 was Issued in 1952, teachers were not warned that they could not expect to share in increases that might later be granted other State employees,” said the article. The institute signed the agreed case in the realisation that governments " a Y e nev ®r been generous to teachers and that the proposed basic scale represented an important advance in principle.

“Had it been known then that acceptance of the order meant not only forfeiting the back pay that was due to teachers and giving up various pecuniary advantages of the old scale, but also forfeiting the right to future increases, the institute, never enthusiastic about it, would not have signed. “The settling of this claim will not remedy the situation which has confronted teachers, particularly in the primary service, for many years. At no time since the bulge in birth-rate nit the schools has the supply of teachers been adequate to cope with the numbdrs of pupils and the supply - ~b u, l l , and equipment has similarly lagged. The result has been to throw practically the whole burden °r the shortages- on to teachers’ shoulders, and however much we appreciate the administrative difficulties facing the Minister, the department and the boards, this fact cannot be ignored,” said the article. “We hope that the institute deputation, when it meets the Prime Minister, will be given the opportunity to make it plain that for many years the Government has been getting primary education on the cheap and has been getting it largely at the expense of the primary teachers,” said the article.

“It should be made quite clear that these claims are quite distinct from the case we are presenting to the Prime Minister, Which merely seeks to restore equality with other State employees.”