TEACHERS’ SALARIES

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 135, 3 March 1922, Page 6

TEACHERS’ SALARIES

INSTITUTE AND MINISTER. In a concluding comment on the discussion of the comparative salaries of teachers in England and in New Zealand the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute replies as follows to the remarks of the Minister, published on Wednesday last: “ 'The secretary has again had to shift his ground,’ savs the Minister. The secretary has" not at any time shifted his ground. His ground was, and is, that the scale of salaries for assistant teachers in. New Zealand is distinctly inferior to the ‘Burnham’ scales in force in England; and the figures given amply prove that that ground is firm and unshaken. The Minister further asserts that the statement that ‘there is a dimihisnmg number of positions in the higher grades and that promotion is thereby blocked’ cannot be sustained. What else then is the meaning of these figures—Grade 2A positions, 707 ; Grade 3, 390; Grade 4, 281; and so on down to 81 ? The Minister says: ‘lt is not true that the male assistant has little chance of promotion in this country,’ apparently attributing such statement to the institute’s secretary. No such statement was made by him, nor has he contended that ‘promotion in New Zealand is a most difficult and slow process.’ Promotion was not the subject under discussion, and the only reference the secretary has made to it was in connection with the scale of positions quoted above. With legarl to the tendency of women teachers to leave the service for domestic life, the secretary has nothing to say except that the same tendency probably, operates in England—it does not affect inc comparison of existing salary scales. In conclusion, tho official secretary of the institute disclaims any ‘specious attempts to disparage our salaries.’ There was no discussion of the salaries question, and the present controversy did not originate with teachers or with tho institute or its secretary—but it was necessary to correct the misleading effect of some of the Minister’s figures.”