PAYMENT OF ENLISTING TEACHERS

Southland Times, Issue 17663, 22 February 1916, Page 3

PAYMENT OF ENLISTING TEACHERS

I DEPARTMENT'S ACTION CON. DEMNED. At the meeting of the Committee of Management of the Otago Educational Institute, held on Saturday, the secretary (Mr J. Jeffery.) read the following circular which ho had sent to the secretaries of district institutes throughout tlie dominion: ‘T shall be glad If you will let me know what allowance your Board has granted in the past, and is granting now, to teachers in your district institute area, who have been accepted for military service. For a time the Otago Education Board gave full salary up to the end of the montn in which the teacher went into camp; but, acting under instructions from chc Education Department, it now ceases payment on the day preceding that on which military pay. begins, in my opinion, as most teachers enlisting are receiving less in the military ranks than if ihey had remained in their positions, this parsimony cannot he too strongly condemned. "But another practice is worse still. Teachers are paid for their Christmas and New Year holidays, for salaries go on although schools are closed, the payment for holidays being, of course, a part of a teacher's emolument. But an Otago teacher, instead of enjoying his holiday to the full, left Dunedin on the 11 th to go into camp. And his reward'.’ Because ho was to draw his military pay from that date, his salary as a teacher was stopped on the joth • To be penalised for depriving himself of a portion of his holiday for which lie was receiving full pay, in order that lie might the sooner go to the front and ri.-k Ids life for the Empire, is only another of those acts in which the Government has shown itself incapable of

rising to llie occasion. "What information I get from district in-liiutes 1 hope to make a summary of, and through the Otago District Institute pass it on to the secretary of the N.Z.i-. 1.. that some concerted action might be taken. .1 think, too. that, as teachers wiio have become commissioner! officers are guaranteed an income to tho extent of per cent, over what they were receiving as teachers, non-co,mmis-sinned officers and privates ought to bo guaranteed at least as much as they were drawing before going into camp. Aral the same principle should apply to all Government services. While the unjust volunteering system is allowing the more patriotic section of the physically fit to risk their lives to uphold tho Empire's ideals, we should see to it that, if possible, teachers lining so are not made to suffer financially. Nor should any democracy ask them to." Ono Board thinks that the shopping of any of January's pay is illegal, and is paying ail enlisting teachers up to the end of the month they leave for Trcntliam; and the secretary of another suggested to a teacher that he should ask the military authorities not to put his name nn the pay-sheets until February, and sa allow him to draw bis salary as a teacher up to the end of January, The institute intends, through the executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute. to bring the matter befotc the iWii-i.-ter of Education.