Higher Pay For School Cleaners Urged

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30568, 10 October 1964, Page 15

Higher Pay For School Cleaners Urged

Rates of pay for school cleaners in line with those for cleaners in the Public Service, “where other Government departments have better and more realistic rates of pay for people engaged in this very important service,” were recommended by the annual conference of the Technical Education Association of New Zealand.

It was reported that a meeting of principals had referred to the difficulty in most sec-’ ondary schools of obtaining satisfactory cleaners because of the low wages. Representations to the Department of Education had consistently failed.

Mr R. C. F. Savory (Auckland) said it should not be necessary for the principals to fight the department over this important matter.

“My experience is that the Treasury is not the big bad wolf the denartment tends to depict it.” Mr Savory said. Salary Groupings Dissatisfaction with the qualification salary groupings for technical teachers was expressed in a remit adopted by the conference.

The association will urge that a teacher with an advanced trade certificate and a superior teaching certificate should rank equal with a teacher with a bachelor’s decree.

The present immigration scheme should be relaxed when senior teaching staff had to be recruited from overseas, said another remit. The conference agreed to ask the Minister of Education to set up a committee to investigate “the growing numbers of pupils of low performance coming on to postprimary schools.” The association decided to oppose the release of pupils at the end of the term proceeding their fifteenth birthday, and considered that they should be required to stay until the end of the’ term in which they reached the age of 15. Standard of Equipment A remit from the Canterbury Education Board asked that equipment of a high standard be supplied by the Education Department when setting up new manual train-

ing rooms in manual training centres, intermediate schools, and district high schools. The board felt that in some cases equipment supplied by the department was inferior in quality.

The remit was referred to the executive for action. The next conference will be held in Wellington. Officers elected were: president, Dr. F. G. Spurdie (Palmerston North); vicepresidents, Messrs R. Jones (Christchurch) and A. D. Fountain (Nelson): executive, Messrs R. C. F. Savory (Auckland), G. Anstice (Otahuhu), R. A. Keir (Auckland), J. N. Laird (Hawera)," E. W. Mills (Petone), and C. C. Noall (Wellington); secretary, Mr G. W. C. Drake (Otahuhu).