TEACHERS AND CHANGES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 August 1924, Page 9

TEACHERS AND CHANGES.

(To the Editor). Sir, — : With reference to your leader in Saturday’s issue, I would like to make a few comments. While agreeing with you at to the seriousness of frequent changes in the staff, I do not think this can be attributed solely, if at all, to the grading system. Now that under the grading system teachers are paid mainly according to grade, and not according to position, the opportunities cf obtaining a higher remuneration by changing from one school to another are, I understand, reduced to a minimum, if not altogether abolished. If this is so, the causes of frequent changes in the staff of particular schools must be looked for eleswhere. The phenomenon of a rapidly migrating staff is not one that is equally noticeable in all schools of the kind. The fault- must then lie nearer home, and not in some technical imperfection of the grading system. It' is, moreover, hardly correct to suggest that the “roving disposition’’ of teachers is an important- factor in, the situation. It could, for instance, hardly be suggested that a. married man with four children should move on because of a “roving disposition”: and this is a case that recently happened in Hawera. Moreover, it is understood that when a successor was appointed and had accepted the position, he subsequently withdrew. as did also at the- same time a near relative who had been appointed to the school.—l am. etc..

FIDO. [The latter portion of the correspondent’s letter has been excised. He should make his representations to * the Board of Managers.—Ed.]