WOMEN TEACHERS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 99, 23 October 1924, Page 15

WOMEN TEACHERS

PETITION AGAINST DIFFERENTIATION.

A petition embodying ,the claim of "equal pay for equal work" for women teachers was presented' to the House of Representatives yesterday by Mr. P. Fraser (Wellington. Central).

The petition states that on lat February last a new scale of salaries was brought into operation, and this for tha first time introduced a differentiation between the salaries payable to mala and female teachers in the same grade of position, the lowest grade now being advertised as follows: Male, £156-£204; female, £135-£175. Under the old scalo the lowest position would be advertised as £145-£155, male or female. Under both scales there is in addition a married allowance of £40. Such a differentiation on the ground of sex alone without reference to qualifications or teaching capacity is viewed with great dissatisfaction by women teachers on the ground of injustice, and as a violation of the basic salary principle as set out in the platform of the N. Z.E.I. It is stated that sex differentiation in carried further in the same regulations by reason of the quota marks allotted to male and female teachers. Whereas undor the old regulations male" end female teachers- holding the same grade of position received equal quota marks, under' the new regulations the femal<» teacher would receive 20 marks less than tho male. "The quota marks," says the petition, "liavo officially been recognised as efficiency marks, and largoly determine the place of tho teacher on the graded list, so Ihiit the female assistant will suffer, a permanent di»ability in relation to female teachers, as to her place on tlio list, and her consequent eligibility for positions that are given by reference to place on th« list."

It is further asserted that the Department, in introducing this new salary scale, has created a conflict of interests where there should be no such conflict, and has sown the seeds of a bitter sex.antagonism, and created a sense of grievance and injustice, which in the interests of the children alone is moat undesirable..- A scale based on such undemocratic and retrograde principles cannot be justified oven on the grounds of expediency. In the matter of frequency of transfers there is already a regulation which requires a teacher to remain twelve months in one position before being eligible for nppontment to a position in another.'school. Even though the new schemes was officially stated to have as its' object the lessening of transfers, the Department desires to stipulate yet another year before the teacher can transfer, thus showing a lack of faith in the efficiency of its own scheme to achieve the object it was said to aim at. It is urged that the regulations be repealed and that the 1923- scale be reverted to in the meantinVe. '