TEACHERS' SALARIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 8

TEACHERS' SALARIES

SUGGESTED NEW BASIS Mr. Hylton, assistant secretary of the Wellington Education Board, explained to local school teachers recently the board's suggested new scheme of salary payment. "The Education Department and . the boards were concerned," said Mr.Hylton, "at the great instability of school staffs under the present system." In the case of the Wellington district there were changes in staffs amounting last year to about 26 per cent, of the total number of teachers employed. This was due in the main to the fact that under the present system the position and not the teacher decided the- salary paid. To obtain promotion and an increase" in salary it was now necessary for a teacher to transfer to another school. The proposed new basis obviated the necessity for such transfers by giving teachers a regular annual increment. The scheme, however, provided for five or four-yearly "efficiency bars," when the teacher must. show by his grading that he is efficient enough to receive further increments. "Teachers have ■ asked," said Mr. Hylton, "that a, new system of payment simpler to understand than the old and based on efficiency be adopted, and that there should be steady progressive increases with allowance for domestic responsibilities instead of house allowance." The board's scheme aims to meet the teachers' wishes, and it is further claimed that the total salary bill will not be increased at all.