WOMEN WHO DO NOT NEED WORK.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18822, 10 March 1931, Page 3

WOMEN WHO DO NOT NEED WORK.

AUCKLAND EDUCATION BOARD’S OBJECTIONS. The Auckland Education Board is again applying to the Minister of Education to grant it discretionary powers in dealing with cases where married teachers are employed while their husbands are in a position to support them. This matter is of importance to the other centres as well as to Auckland, particularly in view’ of *the serious unemployment position among young teachers. So many post-matriculation students are unable to obtain employment that it is considered most unfair for one home to be in receipt of two salaries. A member of the Canterbury Education Board made it clear to a reporter that the position in Canterbury called for the granting of discretionary powers to the Canterbury Board, quite as urgently as was the case in the north. The young teachers were in an unenviable position. Temporary positions had been found for some of them, but there were many who were, through no fault of their own. unable to justify the expense, and, in many instances, the cheerful self-denial that their parents had undergone on their behalf. Some of the married women, a teacher vitally interested in the matter explained, might be supporting sick husbands. Other extraordinary circumstances might justify some in retaining their positions but that proportion, at the most generous estimate, could not represent more than half the married teachers in the country. High Salaries. Cases by no means infrequent in which husband and wife are both drawing large salaries, are particularly held up as an indication of the necessity for an amendment to the Act, bestowing discretionary powers upon the boards. Examples of this double-banking, freely related, include that of a woman, high in the service, who is receiving more than £3OO a year, while her husband, a professional man, is in receipt of a salary in excess of £4OO a year. Yet another woman is driven to school by her husband, a comparatively wealthy man, who calls for her again in his car when her day’s w r ork is done. Domestic Cares. A further objection raised to the employment of married women by the Department is the decreased interest in her work which one naturally expects when a woman shoulders domestic responsibilities. The rearing of a family calls for sick leave, and, there again, the pupils must suffer. And the reason for this clinging to the service is said, apart from the immediate financial advantages, to be due to the women’s wish to complete the required term of service and qualify for superannuation. Not Cupidity. Sheer necessity rather than cupidity is responsible for the action of many of the younger teachers, according to what the husband of one of them told a reporter. His argument was that teachers trained by the Education Department had to enter a bond to teach for at least three out of the first five years in the profession under a penalty of losing £2OO or more, according to whether the teacher was a probationer or a pupil teacher This was a scheme that looked well on paper but did not work smoothly in practice. Young women, marrying, rarely found themselves or their busbands in a position to enter a legal obligation to surrender £2oo—an obligation which, though they might not be called upon to face it, was always hanging over their heads. The situation was anomalous, to say the least of it, and it was doubted in many circles whether it was even legal. A test case had not been fought on the point, but lawvers had considered it extremely doubtful whether the Department had the right, not only to demand forfeiture of the £2OO, but even to insist on the young woman teaching for the required three years.