INADEQUATE PAY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 78, 28 September 1918, Page 10

INADEQUATE PAY

WARM COMMENT BY TEACHERS ■■.■'■ ' ',■... / ■

"WOULD YOU STRIKE?"

"Teachers are. asked, to recommend their brightest boye and girls to enter the teaching profession, but I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, could you ask boys and. girls, bright or otherwise, to join the ranks of teachers ■at the. present time?" said Mr. W., Foster at the meeting of the : Wellington branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute last night, when the question of the paucity of teachers' salaries came up for discussion. "At the present time teaching is a blind alley, and a poorly paid alley at that." Continuing, Mr. Foster said that the younger teachers in the city, receiving £120 per annum, were in a really desperate position, for after they had paid board and brought, clothing nothing.was left for other necessaries. The purchasing power of the sovereign was now 13s 6d, so that those teachers received not £10 -per month, but, ten times 13s 6d. in purchasing power. Other speakers warmly condemned the payment of altogether inadequate salaries to the great bulk of the teaching staff, and pointed out that the present scale of salaries reflected directly on the education of the children, ■ for low salaries meant inefficient staffs. For that reason action should not be deferred till after the war^ but should be taken at once.. Specific . cases were of promising teachers who had left the profession to enter more highly-paid professions. ■- .'■''.■. . '

Mr. B. Keen struck a new note when he suggested that teachers should fall in with the methods of tramway employees, cqalminers, and others, and, failing all else,, "go slow," or "not at all;" He also pointed out that Wellington teachers were in a. worse position than were those in other towns or centres, oil. account of the higher cost of living and the .much higher rents. "It seems to me," said Miss P. Myers, "that the only way to get the people of New. Zealand to realise the value of teaching, would be .to close the schools for a year." ..'. • •. / :. .

A, voice : "Would'you strike ?" "Yes. Maybe if the schools were,closed for .a year, then the people would realise the value of , the teaching profession: We must bring pressure <to bear." (Laughter.) ■ ■, .. The Chairman^ (Mr. A. M'Kenzie) said that the Minister for Education had gone round, the country, telling the public that teaching was-a dying profession. He was right,-for the profession was dying, and until'greater inducements were offered, just so long would difficulty be experienced in filling the ranks and keeping them full. , Mr. Foster said that the question was so urgent and so worrying that lately he had seen himself in nightmares as organising secretary of a teachers' trades union. ; (Laughter.) The- youiiger teachers were not going slow or striking, but they were leaving the profeesion, and that amounted to somewhat the same thing. Not'only were the gaps not being_ filled, but they were actually in-, creasing. ' He doubted the likelihood of the possibility of moving the -.Government by means of the force of public opinion; he considered that the demands should be laid before the Government by the profession,- which should . say^ "These are our minimum demands." -.

Finally a motion was passed, on the suggestion.of Mr. Foster, that associate institute* of the Dominion should be asked, to forward the results ■of their deliberations oh the subject to the New Zealand* Educational Institute.