EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 8 January 1914, Page 4

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

♦- — ■ THE SALARIES QUESTION. , BY TELEGRAPH—PHESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, Jan. 8. 1 The New Zealand Educational Institute discussed the salary question. The executive moved the following remit: — "That in the proposed Education Act the substitution of some better basis than attendance for the computation of salaries be made." , In moving the remit, Mr H. A. Parkinson (Wellington) said that they had J reached a point when they could reasonably ask, and hope to obtain, that teachers' should be paid, not according . to length of service or attendance, but According to the value of their work. They hoped to get a grading system that would place a teacher as near as possible in his right situation on the professional ladder and pay him accordingly. If this scheme were adopted the State would pay the man and not his position. "If they were fortunate . enough to obtain a national system the scheme could be obtained easily. In outlining his scheme, the speaker said that the schools of the Dominion would be divided into different grades, md to , each grade teachers would be drafted according to merit. The grading would be decided by the inspectors. Under ! this scheme a teacher would be made independent of any elements in his social environment, and would be immune from loss through decrease in the average roll of his school. An amendment-was moved, by Mr J. Kelly (Otago), that the computation of salary should be based on efficiency and service. All people, he said,'were [-creatures of circumstance, but particularly so were teachers, for they suffered from circumstances over which -toey had no control. Mr Duggan (Hawke's Bay), in recondmg the amendment, said "that the sense of injustice felt by the majority of the country teachers of the Dominion c< uld not do otherwise than .affect the efficiency of their work. The amendment was carried by 34 votes to 22. _ At a later stage of the proceedings the following remit, forwarded by the Hawke's Bay Institute, was adopted: —"That this Institute regrets that it was found impossible for Parliament to deal with the salary question last and considers that the r.ew scheme, when approved in 1914, should be made retrospective and operative as from January 1, 1914." A special meeting of the executive and 29 representatives of district institutes will be held in July uext. The next annual meeting will be 1-e'd in July, 1915. The demand for the payment cf superannuation allowances on tf.e three best-paid years of service, and the request for an actuarial report on the oost of increasing allowances to widows from £18 per annum to £26, vere renewed. The "Murray" purses presented to the provident fund totalled £16 ±Bs. but Auckland (£BS) and North Cant ot bury (£BO and £27) had made special appeals on behalf of distressed members. The election of officers resulted:— President, Mr A. Erskine (Weliin/sfcon); vice-president, Mr T. U. Weils (>ickland);-. secretary, Mr H. A. Parkin.'on ; treasurer, Mr E. U. Just; executive, Messrs Newton (North Island), Flamank (South Island), and Grundy (Wellington); journal registrar,. Mr J. Menzies.