The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1908. A CASE FOR EXPLANATION.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 338, 27 October 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1908. A CASE FOR EXPLANATION.

An extraordinary position has arisen in connection with the new Education Act... The information which we printed yesterday respecting the matter will come as an unpleasant shock, not only to the school teachers of the Dominion, but to everybody who is acquainted with the circumstances leading, up to the passago of the new law. It will be remembered that the Bill provided for a re-classification of the primary schools and a new scale of salaries, the general effect of which was materially to improve the position of the teachers in . the smaller schools, by the double device of fixing a fairly reasonable minimum salary in each grade and placing the teacher's salary as far as possible beyond the reach of curtailment through causes beyond the teacher's control. These provisions were welcomed everywhere, and tho Minister for Education and the Government were loaded with'praise from every quarter irrespective of party. Indeed, we cannot remember any case in which the Government received unanimous applause so warm and so genuine. The teacher who is struggling along on a mere pittance in a tiny school was to have his salary raised to £90 so soon as tho Act came into operation. From poverty he was to be raised suddenly to what would appear to him to be positive comfort. It was mostly for this reason—that the State would forthwith ceaso to pay any teacher "in sole charge" a less sum than £90 per annum— that tho Bill was so cordially received. And when, after some anxious moments, owing to the attitude of the Minister upon an amendment relating to uniformity in school books, the measure became law, the, underpaid teachers in the smaller schools lifted lip their heads, and looked forward with pleasant anticipation to tho new year and its £90 minimum. Now comes the news that these hopes have been vain and that the praise accorded to the Minister, and accepted by him has been undeserved. The Minister states that a teacher who at present receives a salary lower than the minimum salary provided for his grade in the new schedule will not reccive that minimum salary, but will receive only an increment of £5 per annum upon his present pay. Tho teacher, that is to snyi who has boon earning, say, £C 0 n year, tiud who Iwa boon looking forward

to a rise to £90 in the new year, will rcccivc only £05. Exactly how the Minister for Education gets this intention out of the Act is by no means clear. Clause 7, sub-section 3, is clear enough: "A teacher who is employed in a public school at the commencement of this Act shall, so long as ho remains in the same position, rcceivo as from the beginning of each year (commencing with the year 1909), an annual increment of £5, in addition to tlio salary received by him at the commencement of this Act, until his salary reaches the maximum for the grado or subgrade of salary attached to that position by this Act." What is meant by' "the salary received by liim at the commencement of this Act" 1 Clause 7, sub-section 1, has already provided that "the salaries payable . . . shall be the salaries of the grades and sub-grades (as defined in Part 2 of the first schedule hereto) prescribed for those teachers in the second schedule hereto." That appears to make it perfectly plain that on January 1 next every teacher who is now paid less than the minimum of his new grade will forthwith commence to draw his salary at the rate of the new minimum. It is possible, of course, that by some stretch of language the Act can be read to bear the intention which is claimed for it by the Minister. But wo put it to the Minister that in all the discussion of the Bill everybody imagined that the intention of the Act was its apparent intention. Nothing was said by the Minister to lead the teacners and the public to any other conclusion. 1 The very fact that the Educational Institute gave warm praise to the Minister for at - last doing justice to the .grossly underpaid teachers of the smaller schools—praise that would not and could not have been given had the position been as the Minister now states it to be—is ovidence of the impression tuat the Minister allowed to get abroad. In the second reading debate the point was clearly raised by Mr. Massey in the Minister's presence: At the present time, I understand (ho Said), under the term "sole teachers" may be included the teachors referred to in what is called in this Bill Class o—the0 —the teacher who under existing circumstances would commence somewhere with a salary of £'18 —that is_ to say, with eight pupils, drawing a capitation of £6 per 'head for each. I am glad to notice that In tho present Bill the minimum salary will be £90 per annum, and this £90 is not too large even to commence with. That is simply what everybody understood, but tho Minister said not a word in correction of Mr. Massey'.s reading of the Bill. The position is therefore this: that the teachers and the public have been entirely misled, the teachers into expecting certain benefits, and the public into commending tho Government for providing those benefits, while all the timo tho Act, if the Minister's disturbing interpretation of it is correct, has provided only a shadow of the promised relief for the worst paid of our teachers. It is purely by accidcnt that this extraordinary situation has been revealed prior to the general election. As we have said, the wholo business looks like a very cruel deception of the underpaid teachers, and, so far as the public is concerned, a gaining of applause trader false pretences. The Minister owes the public a prompt explanation of his singular attitude.