TEACHERS’ APPOINTMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11541, 30 March 1898, Page 6

TEACHERS’ APPOINTMENTS.

TO THE EDITOR. ■ i . g lßj —As a country teacher I am very pleased that the subject of school appointments is at last being brought prominently before the public through the medium of your columns. I suppose there is no branch of the public service that offers less inducement to our-young men than the teaching profession. It is a profession in which promotion is an unknown factor. It demands a maximum of work for a minimum of pay; it makes young men old, and old men useless. Any movement, therefore, that has for its object the redress of our grievances should be heartily supported by every school teacher. As a rule we get very little sympathy from the general public; perhaps some of us don’t deserve it. We have to labour and to wait—for promotion which may never come. Married men may be unwise enough to have large families. And as their families increase, so may their salaries decrease. As , the. attendance becomes less, so, quarter by . quarter, will the teacher’s Cheque decrease; until he may experience a drop from, say, -£l7O a year to .£l4O or less. . So, it will be .seen that the more expert he becomes as a teacher the less pay he has to he satisfied with, i.e., the' greater the" experience the less the remuneration. These are facts, and facts are stubborn things. Several appointments have recently been made, in which experience, combined with successful teaching, has had no weight. Ido not say that the successful applicants have not been successful teachers in their last appointment ; but I I do maintain that, while they have been only equal in success, they have lacked the experience of many of the rejected applicants. Of course, I could give instances to prove my assertions, but I don’t think it would be good taste on my part to do so. There should be some method about the appointments, some system of promotion. At present there is neither one nor the other. Thus a teacher, though he may have done long and faithful work, will find, unless he is prepared to pander to committees and to individual members of the Board, that he may rest in peace on his .£l4O or as much less as his salary may run down to. On this munificent salary he is supposed to dress well, clothe and maintain probably a large family in decency, support his church, contribute to charities and subscribe to a daily paper. Probably by the time some of us are sixty-five years of age, the Old Age Pension Bill may be un fait accompli. So we need not be without hope. Ido not pen this letter in a spirit of flippancy or levity, for I know what I am writing about, and write as I feel. Those teachers who are drawing their £3OO or £4OO a year no doubt can afford to rest on their oars and advocate extreme caution in dealing with this subject. But the man who, after twentyfiye years’ experience, has to subsist — I will not say live—on £l4O a year, must be excused if he hold different views.— I am, &c., JUSTICE.