WOMEN TEACHERS ARE THEY UNDERPAID?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 8, 9 July 1912, Page 8

WOMEN TEACHERS ARE THEY UNDERPAID?

PLEA BY A SCHOOLMISTRESS. ' Salaries of schoolmasters, as compared with the salaries of the Civil Service and other callings, bulked large in yesterday's evidence before the Royal Commission of Education. This morning the side of the school mistress and lady teacher was put from a financial point of view. Miss N. E. Coad, junior assistant at the Newtown School, said that the salaries of women in tho lower grades of the teaching profession were not what they should be, considering the increase in the cost- of living, and the salaries paid to women in other departments of the Government service. In the lowest I grade of the teaching profession the salary ranged from £90 to £105, and the teachers in this grade, were nearly all women. There was no assured prospect of promotion. In the proposed scheme of classification for the Civil Service it was recommended that the salaries of all juniors, including women, should be £115 in the fifth year, as contrasted with the woman teacher's maximum of £105 after seven years' service. Further, the salary of the woman in the Civil Service proceeded by £15 increments, till in her ninth year she was at her maximum, £165. If, by any chance, a woman teacher did proceed steadily into the next grade, £105 to £120, rieing by £5 increments, she would be getting £120 in her eleventh year. A shorthand writer and typist could enter the Government i Service at the rate of £70 a year, and rise steadily to £160 in about eight years. A woman entered the teaching profession at the rate of £25 a year, and, if she passed her examinations, got £105 in her seventh year, her maximum in that grade. Omitting pupil teachers and probationers, only one woman 'in nineteen could get a salary at the rate of £160, that wa« about 5 per cent. The remedy suggested by Miss Coad was that the minimum of these lower grades should be raised by £20 and proceed by £10 increments for nine years. There was a tendency, the witness continued, for the profession to fall entirely into the hands of women. At the present the proportion of men to women m the Wellington Training College was one to three, and in past years it had' been from one to five. If in future the training of the youth of the Dominion was to be placed entirely in the hands of women such a ' responsibility should be incurred by 'the most capable and efficient women of the Dominion. The question was, were these the kind of women to be enticed into the profession, or instead those whose services could be most easily secured for £90 a year? Was ♦the profession to be raised by insisting on a certain standard of proficiency or lowered by the employment of uncertihcated teachers? " We do not want to make selfish or unreasonable demands," concluded the witness, "or to draw any odious comparisons, but considering the relative salaries of women teachere and women in other departments of the Government service, considering also the relative value of the services of each, the younger women of the profession are dissatished with the low salaries they are at present getting." To Mr. Kirk, the witness said she regarded the hours of worlf of women teachere as equally arduous aa those of women workers in other departments of the Civil Service. 3lr. Kirk : No time for morning and afternoon tea? _ • Miss Coad : No. (Laughter.) Mr. Kirk : On the value of your work you say nothing. Miss Coad : The press t and politicians tell us we are doing a noble work. Mr. Kirk': No doubt about tho nobleness of your work. The Chairman : There would not be a Royal Commission otherwise. To Mr. Poland: Holidays were for the children originally, not 'for the* teacher. ' Mr. Davidson : Why do you not take up work in the country schools, with i a salary largely in excess of what the junior assistants get in large city schools ? Miss Coad : Because we consider that the extra money does not pay us , for the inconvenience of living in the country. Mr. Davidson : Then you are payingfor the privilege of remaining in the city ? The witness admitted that the sal ariee of women teachers had increased very largely in tho last ten years. The Chairman : But what about the increase in the cost of living ! (Laughter.) Do you know for a fact that women teachers taking up schools in the country have to take up members of their family or friends for protection? The witness : I know of two cases. The Chairman : I know of twentytwo. This evidence was then concluded.