TEACHERS' SALARIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 1, 27 September 1920, Page 5

TEACHERS' SALARIES

Sir,—The new Education Bill is about due, and I have been waiting- to learn something regarding it from the Teachers' Institute, or from somo other Eourco; but 60 far thoro has been a great silence, and so far as I can learn, few Boom to have an inkling as to the provisions of the new Bill. Regarding the now scalo of salaries I liavo heard but a niniour, and that rumour seems to me to indicate that a serious misiako is to be made under tho new scalo. Tho Minister of Education has expressed I ho. hope that the salaries to bo offered will induce suitable young men to take up the teaching profession, but if tj.o rumour I hear be founded on fact, and the big increases are to go to the teachers of tho bigger schools, and the teachers of the medium-sized schools are to remain just about whero they r.ow are, then the increased salaries will be all in vain so far as attracting and retaining good candidates for tho teaching profession is concerned. All now in the profession know well that tho number of big schools is small. Grado' 8A comprises about as many schools as r.ro in all the grades abovo it. Any teacher knows that if his boy should tako his nlace in the ranks of the teaching profession, the chances are that ho will never get beyond the medium-gvado school, simply because the big schools are very few, and tho small and me-dium-sized schools are very, very many. The Teachers' Institute is run mostly, if pot entirely, by tho "big" men; so it is not to tbbTr~advantage to advocate too strongly the cause of tho. smaller fry: so possibly, little will bo heard from '{Gem of the above aspect of the question, and the Bill will go through with the very numerous meduim-siMd schools (Grade 2 and 3A mostly) vitll unattractive salaries, and the much-de-sired suitable young persons will con- t tinue to dodge tho teaching profession as heretofore, and tho Bill will miss its mark in that direction at any rate—l am, etc., ' •"■-•• GRADE 8j :