DEMANDS OF TEACHERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1920, Page 5

DEMANDS OF TEACHERS.

PISSATISFIED WITH GRADING. BETTER PAY SOUGHT. By Telegraph.—press Association. Auckland, Last Night, ine Dominion scheme of grading for primary school teachers has been severely criticised of late, especially in Auckland, where some teachers on one ocaunon invoked the aid of the Supreme Court in remedying what they considered to be unfair treatment. The new Minister of Education has called a conference of senior inspectors, members of the Wellington Executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute, and representatives of the male and female teachers throughout the Dominion, to be held m Wellington next week, for the purpose of discussing the grading schemas a whole.

A general meeting of members of the Auckland branch of the Educational Institute was held this morning to elect five delegates to represent the teachers of the Auckland education district at the conference, and to give these delegates an idea of numbers' views on the grading scheme. It was resolved to endorse tlie resolution passed at the last annual conference of the Institute, expressing the opirjon that the quota system is inequitable so long as deserving teachers are debarred from showing their capabilities in higher positions and so improving their status.

It was also decided that in the opinion of the meeting the allotment of marks for "skill in teaching," ''personality and discipline," "organisation and management," and "school environment," should be abandoned, and that "efficiency" be adopted as a general heading coveriii" all these points. ° A vote was taken on the question whether the original Auckland grading scheme was superior in design to the present Dominion scheme. The meetin" proved to be unanimous in the affirma" tive. A resolution was carried affirming that no amendments to the Education Act, or to regulations thereunder, should be finally adopted before all branches of the Institute had been given an opportunity of discussing them. It was ako resolved that no bonus will be satisfactory to teachers which does not include all members of the service. It was unanimously resolved: "That the Department be urged to increase salaries so as to make them equal in purchasing power to those paid on January, 1915."

Mr. Munro. explained that a general increase 01 salaries was granted on the date named, and should be taken as the standard, rather than the 1910 ,-alarie*