PAYMENT OF TEACHERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 17 July 1913, Page 4

PAYMENT OF TEACHERS.

In justification of the absence of any reference to the education question in the Governor's Speech, the Hon. James Allen stated that the education systm was working smoothly, and there was no immediate necessity for reform. The Minister was not, we venture to say, giving an honest expression of his convictions when he made that statement. The education system is absolutely obsolete and defective, and the Minister knows it. He cannot fail to be aware of the fact that the system under which payment to teachers is made is so unsatisfactory that our brainy young men will have nothing to do with the service. His own observation must have taught him that the schools in the backblocks are being starved, and the children shockingly neglected, because no inducement is offered to efficient teachers to go into the country. The very first thing he should .have done, as Minister of Education, was to have faced this serious prob,i'.!m, and endeavoured to afford relief. *To say that the education system is working smoothly is to utterly ignore the facts that are causing those who •a re charged with the administration of the Act the utmost anxiety.