TEACHERS SALARIES

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1920, Page 6

TEACHERS SALARIES

SECONDARY SCHOOL ASSISTANTS DEPUTATION TO THE MINISTER. Mr. C. J. Parr (Minister-elect for Education) was yesterday interviewed by a deputation representing the Secondary Schools' Assistant Masters' Association, which submitted to him a request for higher salaries. Mr. F. M. Renner,, M.A., a member of the Wellington College teaching staff, said that owing to the increase in the cost of living assistant masters and mistresses in the secondary schools were faring badly. There were about 320 of them, all told, in the Dominion. Possibly the average increase in their salary since 1914 was £50 per annum. They desired a grading scheme as in the case of the primary school teachers. Promotions and transfers ought to be made in accordance with such a scheme. Mr. Gifford, M.A., another member of the Wellington College staff, pointed out that the assistant teachers in the , secondary schools were nearly all men | and women who had had university j training, and had secured a good dogree. : That meant that they had up to about their twenty-second. year devoted themselves wholly, to study, and had earned no salary in the meantime. The fact distinguished them from most other teachers and from persons engaged in many other vocations. At present they had to eke out a living by taking extra I work at the technical colleges or by , giving private tuition. Among other things, Mr. Gifford suggested an amendment of the Education Act to make clearer in certain eases the right of the assistant teacher to superannuation, i Miss N. E. Coad, M.A., spoke chiefly I about the claims of the women assistants. ■ ■ ■ ' ■ THE MINISTER'S REPLY. Mr. Pair, in reply, said he would always be pleased to discuss sympathetically with the teachers any troubles they had. He thought it bettor for the teachers to come to the Minister and state their complaints to him personally, than for them to hold meetings and threaten Parliament with dire and awful things. Only by personal approach could he, a new Ministoi", ascertain the teachers' views. ' He recognised that no body of teachers i did more important work than the cxi perienced assistants in the high schools. ] They had charge of the youth between 113 and 18 years—at the formative and impressionable period—and very largely. the brains and the character of our young people were moulded by the assistant teachers. He was impressed by the case that the deputation had made out. Teachers of high scholarship and of twenty years' experience ought to be looking forward to something more than £5 or £6 a week. He would discuss the question of capitation (on which salaries hinged) with the Director, and he would afterwards take such action as ho thought necessary. The Minister reminded the deputation that just at present large claims for higher wages were being put forward in all branches of the Public Service.' He feared that the Minister of Finance was going to have a hard time in endeavouring to meet the situation. Already the country's annual charges totalled nearly £9.000,000 more than they did in 1914. The increase wa_s due chiefly to the interest _and sinking fund on war loans, to pensions and allowances, and to higher expenditure upon wages and other things in the Public Service. Now the Government was every day faced with fresh demands involving a rate of expenditure higher than ever. He mentioned these matters in order to show that Cabinet i had its own troubles.

Mr. Renner, in thanking Mr. Parr for his courteous reception, of the deputation, conveyed to him the congratulations of the assistant teachers upon his appointment to the Ministry.