South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, MAY 1, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2839, 1 May 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, MAY 1, 1882.

The Education Board is to be memorialised by the Teachers’ Association about the manner in which salaries are paid. The memorial, which was published in our issue of Saturday, set forth the case with considerable clearness, and we are bound to say we think it a very good case. The present method is this :—The Board of Education receives from the Treasury every month the capitation grant to which the attendance at its schools entitles it, and it places to the credit of each Committee with its (the Committee’s) bank the amount due to the staff of the school for salaries and allowances for the month. The Board makes these payments on or before the 25th of the month in order to ensure payment to teachers not later than the last day of the month. The Committee then are exp icted to hand their own cheque to the master. The position is somewhat anomalous. Money is placed in the hands of a Committee over which they have no control, but which must simply pass through, their hands to the teacher. On receipt, of this money some (the majority, we believe) of the Committees invariably pay their teacher his salary before the end of the month j others appear to be possessed of an idea that it is incumbent on them to “ pass ” it before paying it, and if, as is often the case in the country, no Committee meeting can he got on the night for which it is called, the matter stands over, and the unfortunate teacher has to wait for his salary until a meeting can be got. For this the Board are somewhat to blame. They should have given all Committees clearly and plainly to understand that salaries do not require to be,passed by them, as they have no discretionary power in the matter of paying the teachers—they are merely the channel through which a regulation payment goes. They have only therefore to empower two of their number to sign the teacher’s cheque on an appointed date. The teachers plead this conduct of Committees as a reason for desiring a change of method, and some have good reason, we are aware, to urge it. But in the majority of cases the salaries are paid regularly enough. There does sometimes occur a hitch, due to circumstances, not to remissness on the Committee’s part. It sometimes happens that one signer of the cheque lives four or five miles away from the countersigner; or one of them is away from home, or in the harvest field, and this occasions vexatious delay and some tramping about country roads for the poor teacher. But, in the majority of cases, the teachers do not suffer from delay on the part of the Committees. There is another matter, however, on which the memorial does not touch, but of which we have heard more than one complaint, and which is, perhaps, of as frequent occurrence as the other grievance. If a teacher happens not to be on the best of terras with the Committee or with individual members, he is open to very objectionable treatment when his salary is handed to him. It is not pleasant to have your earned money thrown at you, and accompanied by depreciatory remarks. Yet this is a species of petty tyranny of which we have heard more than one instance.

The Board of Education' would, we fancy, alter the existing system readily and willingly enough if it were not for this consideration. This function of paying teachers is allowed to be retained, by Committees because it is not thought desirable to altogether set teachers free from local control, a very mistaken idea, for if teachers were so set free to-morrow they would none the less be subject to public opinion. One thing is very certain ; Committees or Boards must eventually go. According to the doctrine of the “ survival of the fittest,” which is it to be ? In the meanwhile wo hope that if the Board does not see its way to grant the prayer of this memorial, those Committees which have hitherto misunderstood or improperly performed their duty in the matter of payment of salaries, will “ mend their ways.”