Work for Teachers.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 194, 17 August 1931, Page 8

Work for Teachers.

To thte Editor. Dear Sir,—The fact that the Unemployment Board has approved of a suggestion that unemployed school teachers should be given teaching work at the same rates of pay and under the same conditions as unemployed men on relief works under the No. 5 scheme, does not seem to have been fully appreciated. The result of this iniquitous proposal will probably be that young men and women at present training for the teaching profession will desert it in a body. What is the use of anyone undergoing a long period of training for a most serious job only to find that their efforts are rewarded by' the same wage as that of an uneducated labourer? I realise that one man is as good as another and do not want to draw class distinctions, but surely', sir, a man who has spent long years in endeavouring to train his mind for teaching should reap the reward of his labours and not receive a mere 9s per day. It is said that the unemployment among teachers cannot be avoided, but there must be ample work for teachers in the Canterbury district. The primary schools are crowded, sometimes fifty being in one class. Under these conditions, good teaching of the individual is impossible. In the secondary schools, classes are always divided in order that the individual student may derive full benefit from educated instructors. The remedy for this educational anomaly might be solved by division of classes, but to put B.A.’s on relief works—better to put them on pick and shovel work and have done with it!—l am, etc., CANTERBURY COLLEGIAN.