The Dominion THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1908. TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 197, 14 May 1908, Page 6

The Dominion THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1908. TEACHERS' SALARIES.

The letter by " Southland Teacher " in tho " Otago Daily Times" of Feb-ruary-27 last, to which reference was made at the Teachers' Institute on Friday last, is well worthy of the attention of the puiic. In it. there is. presented a mass of figures which demonstrates conclusively; that tho persistent Ministe-rial-references to the growth of the Education vote are in-no way a reply to th» very, just demands of tho school-teachers for better consideration, at the hands of the Government.. The attitude of the Minister is summed ,up in' the following extract from an interview'in which he defended the Department against the charge of keeping down salaries:—" You must remember," ho said, " that more and more of the cost of education is being placed upon the shoulders of .the State. The vote for education is going up by leaps and bounds, and, however legitimate the expenditure may be, it 'Is apt to take the taxpayers' breath away when it progresses by hundreds of thousands." One of the speakers at the January meeting of the Educational Institute in Auckland, placed the position respecting the increase of expenditure in a nutshell when he pointed out that " in 1886 "primary school teachers' salaries amounted to about 70 per cent, of the Education vote, but in 1906 the sala-ries-were very little over, one-half of the total vote of £913",660." "Southland ■ Teacher" shows very strikingly. how little the teachers have profited from the increased expenditure. He divides the total expenditure into twelve heads, taking the ySars separately from 1894 to 1906. Tho vote for the head office increased from £2430 in 1894 lo £8033 in 1906, an increase of 230 per cent. In- the same period " education board management" increased by 50 per cent. The total expenditure ..of the boards, apart from teachers' salaries,, increased by 50 per cent. , Tbe expenditure 'on secondary and .university education (grants and scholarships and fees paid) increased by 600 per cent! Since 1901 the increase' in the expenditure on technical schools has been over £50,000. a year, or 500 per cent, The 12 years have witnessed an increase of 250' per cent, on industrial schools. We need not further pursue " Southland Teacher's " statistics of the expenditure outside salaries. Turning to the salaries, we find that 3306 teachers in 1894 received an aggregate sum of £342,072, . which yields an average salary of £103 9s. in 1906 there were 3872 teachers, and their remuneration (house allowances are included) amounted to £123 13s. on the average. It must be remembered that much of the improvement in the average is due to a large decrease in tho number of pupil teachcrs, and " Southland . Teacher " concludes that if the payments to. teachers could be separated from Die payments to pupil-teachers the increase in the salaries of the first class would not be more than 15 par cent., or rather lees than the increase In the cost of living,

Nothing can be clearer from these figgurcs than that the growth of the expenditure from less than half a million a year in 1894 to a million a year at the present time has been due to extravagant administration, and to innovations which in most eases should not have been given preference over the needs of tho teachers. The unpopularity ,of the teaching profession is in everyone's mouth, and it will grow more unpopular, and education will suffer, if tho Government does not take the matter properly in hand. With the annual expenditure standing at such an enormous figure, the Government should forthwith determine to chcck its disbursements on -pretentious ornament and doubtful experiment, and to hand to the teachers every penny that it can spare in:increase pf the Education vote. .