TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 109, 17 May 1901, Page 2

TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Dunedin, last night. The Teachers’ Salaries Commission » opened this morning. The Rev. T. B. Fraser, a member of the Otago Bdardj stated that nothing would be gained by ft colonial scale unless for the general adr vantage of education. He would suggest capitation of £5 or £6 for all schools with an attendance below 51, and over that £3 15s. The suggestion for equal payment of men and women was most selfish and detrimental to the community and ific teachers. There should be a scale 'for the town and a scale for the country schools. He favored a superannuation scheme. He would do nothing to reduce’ the salaries of assistants.

Mr Jas. Mitchell, a member of the Education Board, complimented the Secretary for Education on seeing the propriety of amending the suggested scale of staffing and salaries in the direction of what prevailed in Otago. Every teacher, he said, ought to have his salary determined by his own qualifications and length of service, and the Board ought to have the power of placing that teacher exactly where it was thought the greatest amount of good would be done. Unless Parliament was prepared to go that length he thought it would be doing no good in the adoption of a colonial scale. Mr P. G. Pryde, Secretary of the Educasion Board, did not favor a colonial scalo of salaries, because he believed the teachers would be better paid by the Boards than by Government taking them. All round the Otago teachers were better paid than in other districts. In schoolsof Jrom 15 to 130 pupils ho thought they were under paid. v