PUNISHMENT OF TEACHERS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19165, 23 November 1927, Page 5

PUNISHMENT OF TEACHERS.

I DEPARTMENT'S CASE. ANSWER TO CRITICISM. (ra«s« association **l*g%jm.) WELLINGTON, November 22. With reference to the clause embodied in the Education Bill now before Parliament, which empowers Education Boards to impose a fine not exceeding -10 on teachers who are guilty of wilful disobediencve or neglect of duty, the Education Department states that the necessity for this clause arose out of representations made bv several of the .hducation Boards which found themselves without sufficient power of control over their own employees. Under the present law "the onlv penalty an employing Board can inflict on a teacher is dismissal, and it is necessary that some less drastic punishment should be provided, so that a Board can impose some cheek on offences of a minor character without depriving the offender of his means of livelihood. A teacher cannot even be suspended, except for immoral conduct or gross misbehaviour. A ease occurred early this year where a teacher, who was refused an extension of her midsummer holidays, still persisted in taking the extra" day applied for. _ The Board suspended her, but the Institute took up her case, with the result that the Board was compelled to reinstate her, and to cancel the suspension. The teacher thus escaped punishment of any kind. Negligent Teachers. ' Occasionally teachers are persistently late for duty, take half-hours off without leave for their own purposes, are negligent in furnishing returns or in keeping school records, and are neglectful of duty in other respects, and the Board has no effective remedy. If officers of other branches of the Public Service offend in the respects mentioned above, the controlling authority has adequate means of dealing with the offenders by inflicting punishment suited to the offence. They can be reprimanded, fined, deprived of annual s lary increments, reduced in grade, suspended, or dismissed. The only punishment provided for in the Education Act in dealing with teachers is dismissal, and as teachers are protected by right of appeal, the Board that dismissed a teacher for the minor offences named would find that its action would be held by the Appeal Court as too drastic. Boards, consequently, are powerless, and schools and pupils suffer in consequence. Thb teachers contend that offenders i be dealt with by the Boards through their grading, on which depends the teacher's chance of promotion, and, to a small extent, his salary in the position held, and the inference is that similar action, cannot be taken in the P blic Service, but what are the facts? The promotion of the public servant depends upon efficiency and attention to duty, just as much as that of the teacher. Annual Increment. Further, the Public Servant cannot get an annual increment unless he is reeomemnded therefor by his controlling officer, and there is no such provision relating to teachers. The argument that teachers can be dealt with through grading more effectively than Public Servants will not bear inspection. Grading is done by the inspectors, not by the Board, and even if the inspectors were to endeavour to inflict a penalty through grading, say, for wilful absence from duty for .half a day, it would be found that so few marks in grading could be deducted that the deduction that would result on salary wo ild be nil or negligible, and even if sufficient deduction could be made, effect would not be felt for probably twelve months. To be effective in such a case, punishment must be certain and immediate, and the suggested remedy through grading would be quite inadequate. But the teachers say that the proposed fine would be a slur on the character of the teachers as a whole, and that the punishment provided for Public Servants would he an indignity if meted out to a teacher. Could any .argument be more illogical? They might as well contend - that the punishment of a thief is a slur on law-abiding citizens, or that the punishment of the guilty would damage the character of innocent teachers. They say that professional men and women should be exempt from discipline of the kind, and should not be subject to the same penalties as ordinary Civil Servants. Other Professionals. Even if this extraordinary contention is conceded, and it is admitted that teaching is on a higher plane than clerical work, what about the large body of medical men, solicitors, engineers, surveyors, scientists, architects, and other professional men and women in the Public Service? Can teachers.claim superiority to these officers or over the large body of teachers in Native schools and special schools, who, in the case of default, are liablo to be fined, degraded, suspended, or dismissed? There is no reason why offending teachers should be exempt from the disciplinary provisions applicable to the Public Service. If enquiry ; s made into the practice in other countries, it would be found that offending teachers can be dealt with more drastically than is proposed in the clause in the Education Bill. In Tasmania, for example, teachers may be fined, reduced in salary, deprived of promotion or dismissed, and there is similar provision in Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia. In Canada and the United States, again, th( controlling authorities have effective means of discipline in dealing with negligent and disobedient teachers. From whatever point of view the proposal ia viewed there is no reason why the means should not be provided for dealing witii a few negligent or disobedient teachers in New Zealand, or why they should be exempt from the same disciplinary measures that are applicable to other employees in the Government service or teachers in other countries. They should not be able, with impunity, to ignore the lawful instructions of their head teachers or employing Boards, and the fact that there is some provision to deal with offenders cannot possibly affect the great majority of teachers who carry out their duties in a satisfactory manner.