THE TEACHER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8487, 15 July 1907, Page 7

THE TEACHER.

(By a Teacher.) INo. 2 ABOUT PAYMENT. Under the various Governments, i.e., Ministries that have succeeded each other since 1877, there has been a succession of amendments in the Public Teachers' Salary Act, generally to the detriment of the public teacher, till the Act; of 1905, by which certainly improvements were effected, but many of these are more j than real. ' chief cause of discontent of our teachers lies in the fact that "payment by average attendance" is still maintained as the basis of their salaries. Let us see how this acts: —The president of the New Zealand Educational Institute in his address to the general meeting, January 6th, 1907, in answer to a remark l>_y the Minister of Education, made publicly, "that teachers' salaries are not now paid by average attendance," said: "It is true that for schools above grades, salaries no longer vary from quarter to quarter as they formerly did, but surely in the long run they still are dependent on average attendance, and that in our smaller schools. For the Education Act Amendment Act declares, 'provided that. . . the salary of any teacher shall not be reduced by reason of a fall in the average attendance below the salary payable to such teacher in such school, unless the mean average attendance for the two years eliding December 31st preceding nad been jjuch as would reduce the £he school by one or more grades.' But here is an illustration of how things work out: —A country school average for 1905, 26; ftr 1906, 21; mean average for two years, 24; salary paid in 1906, £141; salary for 1907, £130; loss per year to the teacher, £l4; Decause his attendance has gone down. How can it be asserted that a teacher is not now paid by average attendance! Now, if the teacher had control over the rise or fail of the pupils attendance, such an adjustment of his salary would be fair; but he has absolutely no such control. No matter how zealous and skilful he be, a baby's fractiousness, washing day, the straying of a cow, -etc., are the factors that control the attendance in his school. The constant shifting of rural population is another formidable factor in the numbsrof his school children; a third one, is the opening of new schools in e'.ose neighbourhood of his school. It is sometimes asserted that the teacher has his school committee and the Board's truant officer to assist him in maintaining a good average attendance. In the matter of school committees this is a fallacy. In ma y cases where a man's children attended school quite regularly, before he was elected as a member of the committee, their attendance falls as soon as he has attained his new dignity, and, as a friend of mine 9 who has been thus exalted, said lately: "We of the committee don't bite each other." Just so, the reason for their existence seems to be control of the teacher, no't of educational matters generally or attendance specially. . The truant officer is very useful in towns; his efforts in the country are less efficacious; for the parents who keep their children from school are ready with all manner of excuses, difficult to disprove as valid. No! It is gross unfairness to make a teacher's salary in any way dependent on average attendance; the more so that the amount of his work does not so much depend on the number of his pupils as on the number of his classes. It is as easy to teach full classes | from the Primers to Standard VII. as | to teach a school with one or more classes wanting, because in the former case the teacher can group his classes and even make use of monitors occasionally; in the latter he can do neither. In other woxds, with a school of continuous classes the teacher can lay out a continuity of in a ' i broken ' school he is put to shifts of ingenuity sufficient to tax all his experience, zeal and elasticity of resource. In our labour administration we have, I am told, provisions to protect the skilled labourer of well-known ability from the infliction of a heavy fall in his earnings by the fixing of a minimum wage. Once his ability as a worker has been established, the law appears to guarantee the amount of his weekly incc.ne. How about the teacher? I know at least one case in which a teacher's salary fell from £lO a month, plus house allowance, to £6 13s 4d a month minus house allowance, because of the unfair computation of his salary on average attendance as already stated. (To be continued.)