Trainees find times hard

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 6

Trainees find times hard

Wellington reporter Teacher traines are starting their training in a state of confusion, frustration, and anger as they realise fully their financial circumstances, according to the president of the Teacher Trainees’ Association, Ms 'Alison Taylor. > She has just completed a tour of North Island teachers’ colleges. Trainees were, confused because most of them had accepted positions in teachers’ colleges without knowing their obligations as members of the superannua--v.

tion scheme, Ms Taylor said. They were frustrated because they could see no justice in a situation where their superannuation contributions had increased at the same time as their allowance had been abolished. They were angry because the Education Department had misinformed them over the terms of their membership of the superannuation fund, she said. The Government superannuation scheme was supposed to be of benefit to its members, but the decision that trainees should contri-

bute on a notional rate of a first-year teacher’s salary had made it into a “punitive millstone” round the necks of a group of young State servants whose income was only $27 a week, less than onetenth of the salary of a firstyear teacher. Ms Taylor said teacher trainees had the right to be members of the fund, and wanted-to contribute, but to require them to pay half of their bursary into the fund was plainly impossible and unjust. Other State servants paid only 6 per cent of their actual income into the fund

and it was hardly fair that the lowest-paid group of members should have to contribute the highest proportion of their income. Teacher trainees should pay superannuation on the same basis as other members, she said. If the Superannuation Board was concerned that 6 per cent of the bursary wag not a high enough contribution, it should be supporting teacher trainees in their struggle for reinstatement of a teacher’s college allowance scheme that would cover the rights and requirements of teacher training.