N.Z. EDUCATION INSTITUTE

Northern Advocate, 13 July 1936, Page 4

N.Z. EDUCATION INSTITUTE

Miss Elsie Andrews, ex-president of the New Zealand Women Teachers’ Association, and a life member of the New Zealand Education Institute, addressed a representative gathering of women teachers in the Coronation Tea Rooms on Saturday. Miss Andrews stressed the necessity for women to take more interest in the work of the institute, and to support it in all its resolutions. A new salary scale was about to be submitted to Parliament. Some people said that teachers should not worry about salary, but it was a matter of self-respect not to accept a salary below the bread line, as had happened in some cases recently.

Salary should be based on the efficiency, qualifications, and experience of the teacher. Teacher, schools and children formed one institution. Teachers were members of a great profession and should be proud of it. To become a member of the Institute, she said, was to take out a form of insurance.

A teacher’s work did not end with the schoolroom. He or she had a duty to society, and it was the duty of every member of the institute to make the people in their community education minded.

“How often,” asked Miss Andrews, “do you ever find a group of women talking education; yet education makes the boys and girls of today the men and women of tomorrow?” Miss Andrews later returned to Auckland but she will visit Whangarei again shortly, when she hopes to visit some of the schools.

After hearing Mrs Andrews speak, the lady teachers adjourned to a meeting of the institute, where the election of officers for the ensuing year took place. The following members were elected:—

President, Mr Stevens; vice-presi-dents, Miss Lupton and Mr Teesdale; secretary, Mr Broomfield; executive committee, Miss McLeod, Messrs Hayr, Horner. Hunt and McNabb.