ANOTHER ROYAL COMMISSION

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4301, 9 March 1901, Page 2

ANOTHER ROYAL COMMISSION

INQUIRY INTO TEACHERS’ SCALE OF SALARIES.

A Royal Commission is to he called into umpire the tug-of-war between the Education Boards and the Education Department in regard to teachers’ salaries. The Commission is to consist of five members, who will he representative of the Boaids of Education, the teachers, the committees. ■ the Government and the Legislature. No specific reason has hecu given for the appointment of a Commission or ihq lines upon which its inquiries are to be conducted. Local educationists arc puzzled to know why it is being set up, considering that much time and money would have been saved if the "Minister and department had held a friendly conference of representative educationists to go into the whole question, and arrive at an agreement in regard to the colonial scale. The probabilities are. they consider, that the proposals drawn up by such a Commission as indicated will please no one, and only contribute to complicate the problem. Why the Government and the Legislature should both have representatives on tho Commission they cannot, imagine. In view of the latest developments in regard to the education question the following extract from a special tolej gram scut to the Auckland “ Herald ” by its Wellington correspondent is distinctly interesting: “I am in a. position to say that an attempt is to bo made during tho next session of Parliament to introduce legislation, the effect of which will practically be to abolish the boards under which the education system of the colony has become ono of our most flourishing and successful institutions, and to establish instead thereof a bureau, which shall not only pay the salaries of teachers, but also control tho inspectors, and, through the inspectors, the appoint-' incuts, and also administer tho funds required for establishing arid equipping schools. It is confidently anticipated by the Minister of Education, mid those entrusted with the administration of the department, that the refusal of the Education Boards of the colony to adopt the new system of„ increases in salaries made by the department within'a specified date, causing as it will the effluxion of the vote, will bring tho teachers flocking over to the side of the department' as against tho boards. The proposal, too, that tfio inspectors are to be brought under the direct control of the department is likely to prove acceptable to these gentlemen, because provision is to bo made whereby they are to be brought into consultation in reference to the appointment of teachers, and also in regard to minor matters of administration. Tho support of the school committees to tho now scheme is to be captured by placing in their hands the selection of teachers, the process proposed hoinv that the inspeoto'rs shall make n preliminary selection of half a dozen names to bo submitted to the school committees for final choice. These committees are also to receive periodical allocations from the department for the up-keep of their schools. The whole tendency of the new scheme will he to rob the Education Boards of their raison d’etre, and to centralise in. Wellington the control of the inspectors, teachers and the funds.”