PRIMARY TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 283, 26 August 1944, Page 8

PRIMARY TEACHERS

Present Salaries Held Inadequate

Speaking yesterday at a meeting ot the executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute on the question of primary teachers’ salaries, tbe president, Mr. J. Barnett, emphasized the difficulties of primary teachers, specially those in the lower grades, in balancing their personal budgets. The executive, he said, had earlier made very strong representations to the Minister of Education on the subject. Emphasis had been placed on the increase during the war years of the cost of living, with no balancing increase in personal income to meet such cost. This together with greatly lessened chances of promotion, owing to the retention in their positions, through tbe war, of elder teachers, due to retire, had left a very bleak prospect, specially for younger teachers.

Tbe Minister had obviously been surprised to be informed that many married teachers had been compelled to mortgage insurance policies and to realize on assets to meet the needs of their growing families under a rising cost of living, said Mr. Barnett. Many married primary teachers bad been forced to undertake evening and weekend unskilled labour to supplement their incomes. Such sources of extra income were rapidly disappearing with the return to civilian occupations of men from overseas. The executive was gravely concerned regarding the future financial position of their primary school members. A prerequisite to an efficient teaching service was one freed from economic worries and problems.

He hoped- that if stabilization prevented revision of salary scales, at least a substantial cost of living bonus would be granted bv the Government till such time as a revised scale and complete reclassification of the primary service could be introduced, more adequate to tbe needs of the service which was doing its utmost for tlie young people of the Dominion. Only then could we hope for tbe very best recruits to a profession which, in tbe interests of the nation, should have only the best.