INADEQUATE REWARD

Evening Star, Issue 25172, 11 May 1944, Page 10

INADEQUATE REWARD

SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS AN OBDURATE GOVERNMENT ,t (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 10. 1 The salary scale for secondary school teachers was discussed at a meeting ot the Dominion Executive of the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Association, held in Wellington yesterday and to-day, instead of the annual conference. A statement issued by the executive this evening said that profound discontent was expressed at the refusal of the Government to take adequate measures to remedy the' injustice of the system by which the secondary school teachers were still paid on a salacy scale established in 1921 and reduced in 1922. It was stated that the president, Mr E. N. Hogben, had expressed the regret ot all teachers that after a year of fruitless negotiations this matter ot salaries still had to be considered as a major problem.

" The social implications of the profession, particularly in this period of war and post-war problems, make it particularly undesirable that the secondary school teachers should be in this unprecedented state of unhappy suspense brought about by the Government's refusal to deal justly with their just claims,'' the statement continues. "In the education of a democracy success can be achieved only if the teacher is given free and ample working conditions, adequate status, and a remuneration that will banish financial worry and all sense of inadequacy The teacher is still the master key, without which the door cannot be unlocked. New curricula and new systems are of no avail without the right teachers, and it is known that many young i New Zealanders who would be most desirable teachers are not entering the profession because of the utterly inadequate reward for very special abilities and long years of professional training."