TEACHERS' SALARIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 276, 18 August 1919, Page 6

TEACHERS' SALARIES

SOJIE STRIKING COMPARISONS. In the course of an interview on Saturday with the Minister of Education (the Hon. J. A. Hanaii}. Mr. H. A. Parkinson, secretary of the Now Zealand Educational Institute, save.some striking figures to illustrate tho meagre rates of remuneration of teachers as compared with sonio othons. Beginning with juniors and ots, the showed that a endet entering tho Public Service with a pass in the entrance examination receives for a year's cadetship, mainly in routine and office work, .£SO, Mb, .£BO, £W, and .010 in successive' years. The junior teacher. ontoiinir with a matriculation pass for professional training, receives £6a for each of four years, tho last two at the training college. Thereafter the young public servant goes- forward by regular stages to tho assured 6alary of .£270 by the time he reaohes his twenty-seventh year. Tho young teacher has to take hia, chanco of getting employment, usually at J3120 to commenco with, and no cerlainty of progress beyond £U0 t at which figure many teachers have found a barnot an efficiency bar in their ewe, hut the barrier of an antiquated and ont-of-date pyeteni o? appointment. If 4270 represents tho "living wage" of the average publio servant of 27 years the teachers must bo suffering starvation, for there are about MO.of them of about that age who do not receivo within .£SO a year of that sum; and there are over a thousand fuily certificated teachers with service ranging anywhere between ten and fcirty years who do not receivo ,£260. It. thus appears that of the 3323 certificated tenchers of all lengths of service about 2000 receive less than the minimum provided for a public servant at the age of 27. In the higher rants tha 'same disparity is evident. In a email town the postmaster receives JMOO, the head master of the su'hool .£290. Senior inspectors of schools are rated iis equal to the second division of tho second claes of the professional division, and head teachers of the largest schools rank with tho second division of the second class in tho clerical division.