EDUCATION AND THE STATUS OF THE TEACHING AND OTHER PROFESSIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 255, 23 July 1919, Page 8

EDUCATION AND THE STATUS OF THE TEACHING AND OTHER PROFESSIONS

Sir,—Your Correspondent, Mr. J. D. Sievwright, is obviously on tho right track. If our Parliament is to consult' llio best interests of the community and the nation, it will see to it '.hat the status and emoluments of tho touching profession iiro such as to induce our ablest and beat men and women lo devote their lives to this noblest of tasks. I can discover 110 sound reason whatever why the time and talent of (lie teacher should not bo regarded as of as high value as that of either tho.doctor or the lawyor. ]f any one can suggest any such reason, I should be grateful if he would submit it to your readers. The training of tho teaching profession, in almost .all! its branches, is now as arduous as that of tho average doctor or lawyer; niul, it can 'be safely affirmed that the great ■ majority of lawyers and doctors would bo quite incapable of undertaking the work of the average sooondary teacher. While the average teacher in the Dominion is passing rich w some fifteen

shillings a day, our doctors bee Christchurch newspapers! are estimating their services at ten pounds a day! Think of it —«£lO a day, while the trained liurse, whose service is ofteji of infinitely greater value than that of the doctor, rarely gets as much as ten shillings a day (ali told)! Truly it is time—high time—that "unions" were instituted in all the professions! Why, Sir, should our leading journalists not have the right and power to put as high a rnlue> oil their services to tile community as our doctors .and lawyers? Are they and our teachers not intellectually and otherwise entitled to as high status and 'emoluments as our doctors or 'lawyers? Is hot the pecuniary value attached to the services of a trained nurse a positive national scandal? It is high time that we indulged ill a real "labour" or "service" stoek-takinjj. What about a new "Doom's-Day Book," attaching a "were-gild" (aestimatio capitis) to the life .anl work of every man and woman in terms of communal or national service Our Socialists are perpetually harping on the value and claims of Labour. Let us asl: them .to suggest a classification of all labour—or rather of all social and communal service—and to suggest "values" for -such labour or strvice. Such a Doom's-Day Book compiled bv\a- conference of capitalists and Socialists would be infinitely more valuable still; and might appreciably help us to discover our social, economic, and industrial bearings. Surely, now is the Unie to attempt a rational reclassification of human services. As for the teachers, it is reassuring to learn that, throughout the Empire the necessity of giving their profession the first place in the national _ service is being widely recognised. While advanced secondary institutions in the British Isles, Canada, South Africa, and Australia command salaries of from <£TOO to .fclflOO. the universities are offering salaries of from t 6!/0') to «£I2OU (to begin | with). In Scotland it is proposed to i raise the salaries of all full-time University teachers to ,£I2OO.

A valuable pamphlet (recently compiled and prepared for Die New Zealand Secondary Schools' Assistants' Association bv Mr. F. M. Henner, of Wellington College), on "The Status and Pay of (lie Secondary School Teacher in New Zealand," should be carefully studied by all who are seriously occupied with tile urobleni of -higher education in New Zealand. It is to lie earnestly hoped that every member of Parliament, and all who aspire to represent the people in Parliament, will lay the impressive facts recorded in that pamphlet to heart, and be. found stoutly supporting the Minister of Education—and even urging him to more persistent effort—in demanding due consideration for our national education and educationists.—l am, etc., OLD DOMINIE.