Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1920. TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2124, 6 May 1920, Page 2

Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1920. TEACHERS’ SALARIES.

A STATEMENT has been widely circulated that the Government had decided to pay a cost-of-living bonus to certain branches of the Civil Service, but that teachers were not included in this arrangement. This statement was brought under the notice of the Minister for Education (Hon. C. J. Parr) to-day. Mr Pair said that he was bringing the matter of a bonus to teachers before Cabinet this week, and the Government would then deal with it. Ho thought the teachers should not be excluded from the benefit of any bonus this year, because of the increase made in their salaries in 1919. As a matter of fact he was at present engaged in considering the whole question gf teachers’ salaries. The present system of remunerating teachers was full of inequalities and anomalies, mainly due to the system of paying the teacher according to the attendance at, his school, and not according to his efficiency. Further, such -discrepancies as two teachers having the same marks for efficiency receiving salaries of £l4O in one case and £250 in another were quite common. To straighten out this tangle, which was more than 20 years old, was a work that could not be done in a ivock or a day, and amidst many other problems he was giving .it bis serious attention. 1\ ith

respect to the bonus, he could not, of course, say what Cabinet would do, but teachers would understand that if a bonus were paid to them, as he hoped it might be, it would be without prejudice to their claims to salaries on a satisfactory basis — the consideration of which claims would bo continued.