TEACHERS' SALARY SCALES Sm,—Having had considerable experience as head mistress
of secondary schools, I feel that there are points in the proposed new salary scales for teachers, the effect of which, though very important, may not be appreciated by the public. The salary for graduate women teachers (and it is with women teachers that I am' concerned) is £52 or £24 per annum (i.e., roughly 45. 8d. or 9s. 4d. per week) more than for Most of the other teachers. This, I fear, will not prove a sufficient inducement to encourage parents to afford their daughters a university degree. Most of them rre anxious that their girls should have a " good chance in life," but where the comparison lies between a comparatively cheap training college course, allowing the student to start earning at the age of twenty or twenty-one years, and a considerably more expensive university course, when she will be on their hands up to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three years, the sum of 4s. 8d. or 9s. 4d. per week seems a poor return for the sacrifices involved, especially if there arc other children whose education has to be considered. Daughters also are addicted to matrimony, and may not desire to continue their careers after marriage long enough even to repay the sums expended. Clever and ambitious girls whose parents have not to consider finances and who can obtain a university degree are likely, in the proposed conditions, to fight shy of work in Government secondary - schools, and class distinction between-these and extensive private schools will tend to be more marked than is at present the case.
In former salary scales additional payment was given to secondary school teachers because the expenditure of considerable out-of-school time was considered necessary, especially when dealing with examination candi- dates. In girls' schools this extra work was most conscientiously done. The proposed scales wipe out completely overtime-pay for such work. It will obviously be unfair to expect teachers, more than any other body of workers, to do continuous overtime-work without pay ; and if they do not do so the progress of their pupils is bound to suffer. Corrections are the bane of the teacher's life, a tedious, even odious, job ; but they play an invaluable part in the training of girls for higher education.
From these two causes it is only reasonable to prophesy that, as the older members of staff retire, the work of the Government grammar schools will gradually deteriorate, to the detriment of the pupils and of tha country at large.
As the supply of graduates decreases the academic side of teaching in the other types of new secondary ichools will be left in the hands of mistresses who, however clever and capable, will have finished their education at about twenty years of age, having taken courses in a variety of subjects, many of them non-academic.
Is this really what the public expect as " secondary education for all "? And does the public really value at no more than 45. 8d. per week (the graduate allowance!) the increase of knowledge and breadth of outlook to be obtained from the extra two years in a university pursuing a degree
Previous page
