“SHOULD USE BEST TALENT AVAILABLE.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18985, 3 February 1930, Page 16

“SHOULD USE BEST TALENT AVAILABLE.”

EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL DEFENDS MARRIED WOMEN

“At least three Education Boards at their January meetings had occasion to revive the oft-discussed question of the right of a married woman teacher to hold a school appointment while she has a husband to support her. The principle involved is quite simple. If a teaching appointment is to be filled, it should be given to the applicant best qualified to teach. Should this principle be departed from the system of basing appointments on efficiency will be impaired.” This is the opinon expressed editorially in the February' issue of “National Education,” the official organ of the New Zealand Educational Institute. The question has been allowed to become somewhat involved by the introduction of the unemployment issue,

continues the article. . On the face of it, there would appear to be an injustice in giving an appointment to a married woman whose husband is able to support her, when single women teachers are out of employ-ment. We can see light on this if we ask ourselves whether the schools are established for the purpose of educating the children, or providing men and women with employment. Obviously we must affirm the first part of the question. And if the children are to have the best education available, the best teachers must be appointed. The fact that a highly-qualified woman teacher happens to be married is a side issue, as also is the incidental occurrence of unemployment.

There is evidence of a definite increase in the number of young men and women njarrying, the wives remaining in their employment. The same thing is happening in commercial life. To sojpe, it is'a manifestation of the determination of the modern woman to assert her economic equality and rights. We do not think that women in the mass are greatly concerned about their economic status. Rather are they, and their husbands, thinking about their economic necessity-, which is a very different thing. From another point of view this departure from the

old-fashioned tradition which kept the wife in the home to rear her husband’s children and placed supreme importance on the family as a social institution may' not- be a very good thing for the community', especially if the practice becomes common. The general question of woman’s right to earn is being keenly debated in England. The controversy was opened up by a remark by Mr J. H. Thomas, Minister of Unemployment, that it was “against the nation’s interest for women to work for what they call pin-money', and deprive other people of legitimate work.” Two women's journals, and a considerable section of the daily press, promptly took Mr Thomas to task. The principle affirmed was that, if sex equality' was sound in law, it was sound in economics. One detail of importance was the point made that it was extremely' unlikely that an employer would discharge a highly efficient married woman to. make room for an unemployed woman. That in effect is the principle for which the New Zealand Educational Institute contends when • t insists that appointments should be made on the basis of efficiency, as shown by the Grading list, and That this principle of action sh< uia ne en tirelv independent of such irrelevant questions as married status and unemployment.