The Star. MONDAY, JULY 24, 1893.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4704, 24 July 1893, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, JULY 24, 1893.

Teachers' Troubles. j _____ ■ i Various matters, small and great, are ; combining just now to render the lot of , the New Zealand State school teacher not j altogether a happy one. The measles are ; rampaging throughout the Colony, and ' pulling down the average attendance at the schools in alarming fashion. As , salaries depond to a great extent on ; attendance, many teachers are uneasy in . their minds. They may derive aome con- j solation from the fact that the Minister j for Education intends asking the Boards : for a statement of the losses caused by the j falling off in attendance on account of the ; prevalence of the epidemic, in order that : he may consider what is to be done. In ; this connection there is cause for ( a little mild surprise in the action \ of the Wellington Education Board, which has decided that its schools . are to be kept open, measles or no measles. As one of the chief waya in which the disease is spread ia the infection conveyed to the schools by children who either have measles, or come from homes where personß are laid up with them, the doctors ought to be deeply grateful to the Board. A grievance of the teacher?, more eeriouß than the result of their pupih t taking the measles, arises from the uu- : satisfactory syßteni, or no-Byetem, under which salaries are paid. The journalistic . organ of the profession, the New Zealand Schoolmaster, recently had a leading , article, making pointed reference to the want cf uniformity in this impor- ( tant matter. The article in question admitß that the larger Boards have good and uniform scales of payment, but it asserts that some Boards seem to be guided i by no system at all. In proof, it cites . instances, culled from the pages of the last , anuual Education report, to show that there ' is a difference of aa much as iJI6O between J the annual salary of one teacher and that of j another doing the same kind of work. It shows that in one district the head teacher of a school with an average attendance cf 462 children gets .£220 a-year, while, in another district, the head teacher of a school with an average of 4.61 children receives £355 a-year, and, in a third district, . the master of a Bchool of 66 gets J6225 per j year. An examination of the tables j attached to the report proves that the instances quoted by our content- ! porary are not solitary ones. There . is much pertinence, therefore, in its question, Why, as the capitation allowance to : Boards, the syllabus, and the teachers' examinations throughout New Zealand are the same, should teachers not be paid j according to a Colonial scale. In connec- 1 tion with this question of payment, tho ■ teachers in smaller schools complain, with j great show of reason, that it is unfair that . they should be paid on the " strict," in- . stead of on the " working," average. Tho j " working" average is obtained by deduct- j ing the attendance on all days whereon : less than half the children on the roll are j present; and it is obrious that, unless thia be done, the number for wLich the ,' teacher is paid must be much less than . the number which he, a3 a rule, lui3 to . j teach. There are, however, diffiuultioa in : the way of remedying ths evil, for the

Government grants to Boards are based on the " strict," and not on the " working," average. Ve v another grievance of the teachers was brought to light in a recent telegram from Auckland. The teachers and the Board of Education there aro up in arms because the Railway Commissioners havo raised the price of teachers' yearly tickets for Saturdays from £1 to £3, thua practically preventing the poor country teacherß from attending the University classes. Perhaps we shall be told that this step ba3 been forced upon the Commissioners by dire necessity, or, even, that it is their v/ay of encouraging education, aud assisting a poorly paid and most deßerving class of the community. Until, however, that is proved, we prefer to look upou it as paltry penny-wiee-and pound-foolishness.