‘NOTABLY IMPROVED’ POSITION

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30528, 25 August 1964, Page 9

‘NOTABLY IMPROVED’ POSITION

“The Prime Minister’s announcement is warmly welcomed as evidence of the Government’s frank recognition of the grave difficulties faced by the New Zealand universities in recruiting and retaining academic staff in the numbers and of the calibre required by our rapidly-expanding system of higher education,” said the acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips).

“While still not as favourable as could be wished, our competitive position has been notably improved. The universities cannot but be encouraged: and the community as a whole, which depends so much upon the health of its universities, is entitled to share that encouragement,” said Professor Phillips. “Beside the general range of internal salaries in New Zealand, the new scale may strike some observers as entirely satisfactory. The hard fact, however, is that the most relevant comparison is with overseas salaries. “The two countries which compete most directly with New Zealand are the United Kingdom and Australia. The disinterested Hughes Parry Committee, for example, recommended in 1959 that New Zealand academic salaries should be competitive with Australian ones.

“The universities will be disappointed that, after some years during which our relative position has seriously deteriorated, parity with our chief competitors has not been completely attained. “But it is a great relief to learn that those at the lec-turer-senior lecturer level, who comprise the majority of university staff, are now offered salaries much more comparable with those paid in the United Kingdom and Aus-

tralia. For the time being, we should have a reasonable prospect of attracting able men into these grades and of stopping the drain from them,” he said.

“What is clear is that the minimum non-medical salary, which will have to be paid to a number of professors, is markedly below the standard salary in Australia, where a

review is at present taking place. “The disparity is regrettable both because of the obvious formative influence of professors upon their universities and because the proportion of overseas recruits is even higher among professors than among non-pro-fessorial staff. Still, the introduction of a fairly wide range of professorial salaries affords a useful measure of flexibility and, wisely implemented, could help to protect our competitive status.

“It is specially gratifying to note that the Government acknowledges the need for future salary reviews,” said Professor Phillips. “Regularity in this is of the utmost significance.

“A university can be no better than its staff. In the long run uncompetitive conditions must condemn our universities to mediocrity, as existing staff members leave, retire or are diluted by inferior recruits.

“Second-ratedness would spread from the universities to the whole of the community in its economic no less than in its cultural life. Those who understand this Inevitable sequence will readily appreciate that in coming to the aid of the universities the Government is doing imperative work of strictly national concern,” said Professor Phillips.