TEACHERS' SALARIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 12 December 1923, Page 6

TEACHERS' SALARIES

DIRECTOR AND INSTITUTE'S JOURNAL

EDITOR'S REJOINDER.

In Monday's issue of the "Post" the Director of Education (Mr. J. Caughley) criticised the editor of "National Education" (the official journal of the Educational Institute), for the attitude taken up by him in connection with the publication of certain matter which the director wished to be regarded as confidential, and demanded a. withdrawal of certain statements made in a leading articje in the teachers' journal. "The Post" has since received the following statement from the editor of "National Education" in reply to the Director :— Sir, —In fairness to myself, and to the 5000 odd primary school teachers whom I have the honour to represent editorially, will you permit me to explain the circumstances which led up to the difficulty between Mr. Caughley and (myself. The trouble was of his own making, though nobody would think so from a perusal of the interview which you published on Monday. It reads, by the way, very much as if Mr. Caughley had been interviewing himself. However, Mr. Caughley' makes much of his point that the document which has been the bone of contention between us embodied draft negotiations, publication of which would have constituted a grave breach of Parliamentary privilege. In fact, he would have "The Post's" readers believe that he, metaphorically, risked his official neck by letting it out of his possession at all. This is rubbish. If he realh- believes what he says in this point he (•played extraordinary carelessness in allowing it to be issued in the form of a circular memorandum addressed to Education Boards, school inspectors, and the New Zealand Educational Institute.

The document is headed "Teachers' ! Salaries—Revision of Assistants' Salaries so as to reduce the Number of Grades, j | etc." The preamble states that "the j enclosed tables show the suggested regrading of assistant teachers with the I view of reducing the number of trans- | fers from school to school for purposes of promotion,. but without increasing the present cost," and the conclusion simply says : "The proposed scales arc being, submitted by direction of the Min-ister-to Education Boards, senior inspectors; aud the N.Z.E.I, for their consideration, and the Minister will be glad ( to have their views with any amendments or criticism. If finally adopted it is proposed to bring the new scales into operation on the Ist of February next, so that comments should reach the Department by the end of' November." jlt is not marked confidential—it is not i even described as "Draft regulations." "Whatever Mr. Caughley may argue I to the contrary this memorandum does not, as he says, embody "draft regulations," but the material only for -draft regulations. To a limited extent they might be regarded as confidential, and were in fact so regarded by me until I: saw that they had been openly discussed by the. Canterbury Education Board—the discussion was reported in the Christcburch newspapers—and read out at 'the .Wellington Board's meeting two weeks after their issue from the Department. The material contents of the memorandum were published by Christchurch and Wellington newspapers. I therefore decided to publish the circular, a copy of which I had secured quite openly, in "National Education," but at the point of going "to press I'reeeive'd a message from the secretary of the N.Z.E.I, informing me that he had been requested by Mr. Bell, secretary of the Department, to treat the whole'matter as confidential. I pointed put that publication in the press had. destroyed its confidential'character; that as the essential details of the proposals had already been published, the Department had everything to gain by presenting to the rank and file.of the profession the whole of the memorandum, thereby avoiding any possible misunderstanding which might arise from a perusal of what had appeared in the newspapers. I told him, howeverj .that I would communicate with Mr. Bell, and represent to him my view of the matter. I did so, arid here is where all the trouble arose. Mr. BelLtold me o*»----the telephone that the prohibition had been issued by Mr. Caughley. I replied that I would get in touch with Mr. Caughley and discuss with him what seemed to me to be a matter vital to the teachers. Mr. Bell/suggested that if I would hang on he would ask Mr. Caughley himself. Mr. Bell subsequently returned with a message which so far as I can remember, ran something like this : "Mr. Caughley says that the matter is to be regarded as confidential, and that he does not wish you to ring him up or discuss it with ftim." la other words, • Mr. Caughley declined very curtly and tactlessly, it seemed to me* to supply me with the reasons which he has since supplied to your readers Had he done so, the matter would have ended. As it was, I decided to inform my readers why their ofiicial journal was unable to tell them in full what the press and the public already knew" in part. I have nothing to withdraw — I am, etc., _ 0. J. M'KINNON, ■rrr „.Edlt°r, "National Education... ■Wellington, 12th December; 1923.