University Salaries
The increases in salaries for university academic staff announced yesterday could hardly have been made larger without grave risk of upsetting the balance, such as it is, between the rewards of all the learned professions in this country. The universities should now have much less difficulty in attracting and keeping the numbers and quality of staff they need, for the Registrar of Lincoln College (Mr H. G. Hunt) was, not being facetious when he said earlier this month that New Zealand academic salaries were regarded abroad as “a bit of a joke”. The big increase in the lowest grades is particularly important: it should help New Zealand to retain its first-class graduates, or at least to attract them back after they have completed post-graduate study abroad. Increases higher up the scale should assist in recruiting well-qualified staff at all levels. In the lower ranks at least, university salaries in New Zealand now compare favourably with those in Britain, which were increased last year. Although a lecturer in Australia will no longer earn more than a professor in New Zealand, university salaries in this country are still slightly lower than those ruling for their Australian counterparts before the substantial increases announced at the beginning of this month. The lower cost of living in New Zealand has seldom been considered a serious attraction to academic applicants from abroad; and even under the new scale this country may have to rely on the appeal—which is not inconsiderable—of its gentler quality of life. New Zealand cannot, without risk to its academic standards, allow academic rewards to fall too far below those offering abroad. This country is bound to be less attractive than some others because of its remoteness from the world’s main centres of learning and the relative smallness of its academic community. Only to a limited extent is this compensated by the country’s physical attractions. It is satisfactory to note that academic salaries will now be reviewed every six months. Three years had passed since the last major salary review—long enough to lead to something of a crisis in university staffing.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Issue 32333, 26 June 1970, Page 12
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350University Salaries Press, Issue 32333, 26 June 1970, Page 12
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