TEACHERS’ SALARIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4297, 5 March 1901, Page 4

TEACHERS’ SALARIES

A misconception evidently exists among members of Education Boards throughout the country as tc, the principle on which the Department is attempting to adjust public school teachers'’ salaries. For some time past it has been generally admitted that unjust and extraordinary anomalies have arisen in the payment of teachers. Efforts have been .made to raise the status of women teachers, who were inadequately remunerated, and to institute a uniform scale of payment for the whole country. It is said that ihe Department, in arranging the scale, has had regard to average attendance at sahools, extra responsibility and the classification of teachers according to attainments. In its efforts to administer the Act of last session, which was passed for the purpose of making provision ‘for the better payment of teachers, the Department consulted the thirteen Education Boards, after which the basis on ; which the extra grant should be dis- < bursed was fixed. The Boards readily] 1

dunrrn’f <nrm nwruimTi conceded that average attendance, esc''.; responsibility and scholarship should be the basis on which increase-:, or deductions should be made. Tins was uni. deubtcdly a safe, wise and ju.v principle to adopt. But its appiieaiieu ir. the a : -- tribution of the extra grant la; one, i very unsatisfactory to a number of Beard-, who aver that hitherto ex:-my; ar.om.iiics have been intcn.-ilica a.; ', new cm- ■ created. Thci Cauierbuw. Board i;u ouiy pretests again-i the allociuica f,T the grant on the principle laid dawn, but seeks to perpetuate existing anomalies by making a "pro ratu” inerea.se on all teachers’ salaries. That then; are flagrant discrepancies in the published lists of newly-adjusted salaries is admitted, i"M those arc apparently die resuit of trrtr in calculation, and arc

not due. to the method of apportionment. If the “pro rata” method were to bo adopted in the "Wellington education district, tho anomalies created tv -;|u* Board’s violation of its own regulation, that payment shall he made on tho average attendance, would not bo rectified. The violations which have involved extra payments have been made our of consideration for tho teacher whose schools, as Air Hogg remarked, had been in point of attendance, reduced by the migration of settlers or the stationary condition of population m a given locality. One injustice invariably involves others, and so it came to pass that many schools with increasing attendances wore neglected. The; genera! effect, so far as the Wellinyton Board concerned, was that funds were sacrificed and finances became embarrassed. It is all very well to say that “they Jnl not wish to reduce the salaries of dm old teachers/’ but if tho principle of inducing and raising salaries in keeping with the average attendance had been observed by the Board, its finances would not now be involved, nor would the flagrant anomalies exist in the salaries of its teachers. Lot us look at tho position of several schools in this district , whose principal teachers have ai l house allowances of £SO a year each. At Newtown, with an attendance of 824 pupils, the headmaster receives a salary of £305; at Thorndon the attendance is 464 and the salary £320; at Pcfone the attendance is 077 and the salary £295; at Clyde quay the attendance is 687, salary £310; at the Terrace the attendance is 506, salary £3lO. As compared with the scale of teacher’-.’ salaries in Otago, tho headmasters at these schools arc, with one or two creep Hons, inadequately paid, rud the money that the under-paid headmasteis ought to have received has been expended by the Board in other directions. The injury which the city schools have sustained by the policy of the Board cannot be estimated.

It is now proposed, under the Government scheme, to expend an addition:-! £3OOO in teachers’ salaries in this district, and the Beard is protesting against; its distribution until, as the chairman remarks, the “basis” on which the allocation is made is known; and that, too, in the face of Mr Lee’s explanation that the method adopted regarded principally average attendance. Positions, not persons, were recognised, and positions and responsibilities were to bo paid for. Thai a headmaster with the responsibilities of a school of 824 pupils and a covnineiasurate staff should receive a lower salary than the headmaster of a school m the same city with ,an attendance of 464 pupils is an anomaly that the Board has not raised a finger to remove. If the Department has acted on the principle laid down in its attempt to adjust salaries and remove anomalies, which “too great p knowledge of local conditions and prejudices” has created, then the Board ought to lie only too delighted to have a disagreeable duty performed for it, and should' hail with satisfaction a scheme by trie carrying ont of which Us financial position would bo improved. There docs not uppear to be any desire on tbo part of too Department to usurp the functions of the Education Boards; but if they generally display a spirit of antagonism to a, proposal which, with all its' inaccuracies, is an attempt to prepare the way for the institution of a uniform scale of salaries, then it will be a question for serious consideration whether the Beards; should bo shorn of their responsibilities and larger powers of administration granted ’<> School Committees under the immediate control and direction of the Department. It is proposed to hold a conference of educational representatives, and it is hoped that, when matters are explained, the members of the local Education Board will recede from the position of antagonism they have assumed towards a very necessary reform.