TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12569, 2 August 1901, Page 4

TEACHERS' SALARIES.

The report of the Royal Corn-mission set up to consider the general position - and emolument of teachers in the primary schools of the colony was presented to Parliament yesterday, and the test, together with the more important tables, is published this morning. The results, we confess, fall short cf our expectations in certain respects, but we must congratulate the members of the Commission on the evident care and thoroughness with which they have carried out their task, and on the matter and style of their report. Altogether, they have produced a sound and lucid- exposition cf their views and conclusions, which should alone 'be sufficient to earn them an enviable distinction among the Royal Commissions that have served the colony. If the Education Department adopted the report as it stands and carried it vigorously and henestly into effect, we should speedily 'have in New Zealand a primary school system a.most unequalled for efficiency in the world'. The system itself wculd bo better even than that of Denmark, but we must not rely too much on systems, fcr, after all, it is> administration that tells; and we doubt if in civilised countries there is an Education Department whose administration to-day shows less intelligence and less life than our own. It is to the tabulated scales of salaries that public attention, will be chiefly devoted today, a.nd although time has-not permitted us to make anything approaching a detailed examination, we may say that, broadly speaking, the scale recommended is as fair and satisfactory as we could have expected from a Commission prejudiced in favour of conservative principles. The raising of the capitation .grant to £4 2s 6.i is a measure that will be unanimously The arrangement of staffs, we believe, will largely increase the efficiency of the schools, and as the general average of salaries is substantially increased, there should be every inducement to teachers to give their whole soul and ability to their work. So far as women teachers are concerned, the scale, of course, is wantonly illogical. The agitation for recognition of women's work, in- which we have had some part, has compelled the Commission to raise the status and remuneration of these teachers, but-there is an air of unwillingness about the concessions. The principle vf equal pay for equal -work is recognised up to salaries of £135, but for some reason best known to itself the Commission considers that the principle which operates at£loo does not operate at ,£2QO, that though a woman and a man may be equally capable of -doing work valued at £135, the man should be paid" £4O or £SO more than th* wumau when the work is twice as im-

portant. An honest effort seems to have beer? made to remove the scandalous anomalies existing in certain districts where the first three or four assistants in large schools are invariably men, and we hope that the provisions regarding the relative number of men and, women assistants will be rigidly enforced. This is a direction in which no latitude must be allowed, for if there is a possibility of evasion we shall findi bodies like the Auckland Board relegating women entirely to the lower positions. The scale is not free from other anomalies. There is no apparent justification, for instance, for the large difference of £BO between the salaries of first and second assistant masters in large schools. But these are matters for subsequent examination. We agree with the Commission that primary schools should be of moderate size, the limit of 700 scholars being a perfectly reasonable one. The Commission has made no attempt to deal with the question of promotion, and its reference to certificates is singularly unhappy. If its views on this head wer& carried iato effect, teachers would be directly discouraged from attending university classes and improving their literary attainments. Otherwise the report is coiranendably full of suggestion. It is unfortunate that the Commission could not rid itself of the idea that it had to strike a kind of general average of the thirteen existing scales of salaries, a notion that probably accounts for most of the anomalies in its own scale, but beyond doubt its proposal is a marked improvement in every way on any of the salary schemes at present in use. We hope that Parliament will not attempt to tinker with the recommendations, because the result of ill-considered and inexpert amendments must be evil. If the report is not acceptable, it should be referred back as a whole to th'3 Commission for amendment. New Zealand has now a splendid' opportunity of placing the primary education system on a thoroughly sound and satisfactory basis, and if the report receives the intelligent consideration which it deserves we shall have no reason to regret the expenditure of the taxpayers' money on the investigations and deliberations of the Commission.