1.—13 a.

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[h. bibss.

bilities? The head teacher has important duties, the first assistant has to be ready to take the place of the head in an emergency, and the first female assistant has larger responsibilities and greater duties than any succeeding assistant, and merely because she is a woman she must not receive the salary attached to the position, but that of the rank below. I would point out that under the proposed new scale of salaries no woman receives the salary of second assistant in any high-grade school. Why this is so is somewhat difficult to understand, and I should, on behalf of the women teachers, be delighted to receive an explanation. In view of the fact that infant-room work is at last, in the light of the new knowledge of to-day, beginning to be appreciated, and since from the teacher in the future greater demands, knowledge, and responsibilities will be exacted than ever before, it is somewhat difficult to comprehend why, for the first time in the history qf education in this Dominion, the women are now all under this scale to be paid as third assistants and placed on the level of the Auckland and Otago women teachers. We look forward to the time when all teachers, male and female, will be graded alike, receiving the same marks for literary attainments, personality, efficiency, skill, and service. Then teachers will be chosen irrespective of their sex, and there will no longer be this hateful and degrading sex rivalry in education; but till things are placed on a better footing and women are justly treated we must uphold clauses (c), (d), and (c) of the proposed Education Bill. But until that better state of affairs comes to pass the women teachers of the Dominion have learnt by bitter experience that not from Education Boards, Institutes, or the New Zealand Educational Institute have they received justice, and that is their reason for asking to be heard before this Committee, feeling that only from those outside the profession will a fair estimate of their work be given. I should here like to say that at a meeting of the Educational Institute last week one head teacher in a school in Otago rose and proposed a motion that when a grading scheme came in it should be a separate grading scheme for women as compared with men. Every woman in the Dominion is against that. We are perfectly willing that the same literary attainments and services should be asked of us, and there should be only one grading and promotion scheme for women and men. 2. Mr. Hogben.] I presume you distinguish between a Dominion scheme of grading and a Dominion system of promotion of teachers? —One follows the other. You cannot have promotion without grading. 3. You must have grading? —Yes, first. 4. You see there is provision in the Bill for the grading of teachers? —What we regretted was that this Bill had not done it. We do not want local differences to come in. 5. There is provision in the regulations governing the grading of teachers which did not exist before —in clauses 156 and 157?— Yes, we recognize that. 6. It says the Director shall publish a list- -that is. a Dominion system of grading? —We were not quite sure what this proposal meant. What we say is that the Bill should have fixed marks for service, classification, personality, and everything else, because each district in NewZealand has its own method of grading, and we want an end put to all these local differences and have assigned certain marks for each. 7. But those details are not generally put in a Bill, because from time to time it may be expedient to vary them? —Yes, that is so. 8. And there is full power given to the Governor in Council to alter the regulations in regard to grading? —Yes. As long as we are sure of that we will be satisfied. 9. In regard to Dominion promotion, who is to do that?— The Education Committee will decide. 10. Is it to be one body or by each separate body? —All one body. 11. What will become of the Boards? —They would supply information to this central body. 12. You say the Committees have the last say in the matter of appointment : that is dealt with in clause 67 and onwards? —Yes. 13. Is it not a fact that it is only in clause 7 that the Committee has the choice between two names? —Yes. 14. And are not those cases where persons are apparently of equal fitness? —Yes. I."i. Is it true that tJie Committees have the last say except in the sense that they can make representations to the Board on the Board's choice? —Of course, at the present time the Boards have not always made them equal in qualifications. 16. There is to be a Dominion scale of grading, and I am speaking of the Bill and not the present practice?— Would you blame the teachers if they felt they were still better safeguarded by the Education Boards in making appointments? It may be only a question of feeling, but they have a feeling that Education Boards should, while submitting two or three names to the Committee, still have the final appointment. 17. Grade IIIb may be dropped, you say. and included in tirade IVa. Do you think schools of Grade IIIb are really as difficult as schools with two teachers? —They are all schools with, say. forty in the upper room and fifty in the lower. It is a fairly difficult school, because the head has the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Standards, and that is a more difficult position than a teacher in a town school teaching fifty pupils in one standard. I am speaking of the assistants in a high-grade school where the salaries are £230 to £250. 18. Do you know there is an increase in the maximum? —Yes. That does not alter the position, because you are still paying the third .assistants in a town more than a head teacher in the country of a school averaging 80-121. 19. Are not the qualifications of a town school-teacher very different? —Our town teachers just hold these appointments temporarily, and go out to take a country school. I know of people who have been in town schools as third assistants and have gone out to take charge of country schools, and some of them have been sixteen and eighteen years and see no chance of promotion.