TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8281, 11 May 1907, Page 7

TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Per Press Association

INVERCARGILL, May 10. A deputation from Southland Branch of Teachers' Institute waited on Hon. George Fowlds to-day, to draw his attention to defects in the colonial scale of salaries. The principal objection was that the scale of salaries was based on average attendances. The Minister admitted that the system had not yet reached perfection. He pointed out that the New Zealand system of local control made it less easy to have a general system of promotion. Parliament was never likely to accede to a proposal to annually increase teachers' salaries while school attendance was dropping. At the same time, where, from causes beyond teachers' control, the attendance fell off, the teacher should have the opportunity of transferring before any material deduction was made in salary. The question of how to best arrange matters required careful consideration. He expressed belief in the value of local interest in education, but was prepared to listen to anyone who might evolve a better scheme while continuing the present Bystem of Boards and Committees. He invited the deputation to work out a scheme of salaries and submit it. The colonial scale had enormously improved the status and conditions of the majority of „teachers in New Zealand in several ways. He did not think the decrease in the proportion of males to females was due to salaries, but to the desire of women to earn a living and to the fact that their wages had been more largely increased. At the same time he did not deny sympathy with the deputation and should be delighted if he could now persuade Parliament to grant more money for educational purposes. A member of the deputation said that the N.Z. Institute was engaged drawing up a scheme of salaries for submission to the Minister.