Reasons Given For School Pay Protest

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32367, 5 August 1970, Page 28

Reasons Given For School Pay Protest

AUCKLAND, August 4.

A North Shore headmaster last night explained why he and the other teachers at Beachhaven Primary School plan to work to rules from the beginning of next term unless adequate improvements are made in pay for teachers.

The planned action would have the full approval of the school committee and parentteacher association, the headmaster (Mr A. M. Nola) said. The school gates would open at 8.55 a.m., children would be sent home for the lunch break, and the gates would close again at 3 p.m. No teachers would take part in coaching or supervising sports or other activities outside school hours and no statistics would be sent in to the Education Department “I would hate to see this happen,” he said. “I am here at 7.15 every morning at present”

Mr Nola gave eight reasons why teachers, particularly males, were leaving the profession: Financial insecurity for promising young family men. Teachers had no status in the eyes of the public. The extra services they gave to schools were taken for granted. As they were forced to supplement their salaries, teachers discovered there were easier ways to make a living. Thousands of female teachers —“Thank God we have them”—had returned to the profession due to Government incentives, but none of the incentives was available to men or to career women teachers. Responsibility for control and discipline lay heavily on the male staff Most teachers were not prepared to have a departmental master-servant relationship forced on them. Ministerial sympathy and public platitudes did not pay for the refit or for family bills. If war broke out, said Mr Nola, the Treasury would find hundreds of millions of dollars for men and equipment. “This is a crisis greater

than ever before because it has a lasting effect not only on our children but on the future,” he said.

(New Zealand Press Association)