HC Deb 10 May 1886 vol 305 cc561-3
DR. R. MACDONALD (Ross and Cromarty)

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether he is aware that, in the Memorandum of Agreement between the School Board of Ross Keen, Ross-shire, and its teachers, there are the following clauses:— In addition to the fixed salary, the Board agree to allow the teacher, subject as after-mentioned, the Government grant earned by the school during this engagement,.… and the school fees from time to time, as he collects the same himself, which he is hereby taken bound by the Board to do, the School Board giving him assistance to recover when in their opinion necessary, the School Board and their successors in office under no circumstances being liable to make good arrears of fees not collected by the teacher. The emoluments allowed to the teacher by the preceding article are subject to deductions by the Board of the salaries of assistant and pupil teachers, and others forming the staff of said school; whether, in violation of the above, the said School Board have retained part of the Government grant of last year, and refused to pay it to the teachers in full; whether he is aware that the clerk of the said Board, on the 16th of February 1886, wrote a letter to the teachers, in which the following paragraph appears:— It was also decided yesterday that the teachers be paid Government grant as formerly, and that the extra grant under the Minute of Council of 30th April last be retained by the Board; whether the said Memorandum of Agreement is in conformity with the Education Act, in respect that the School Boards contracts itself out of any interest in the financial fortunes of the schools; it saddles the teachers with the duties of treasurer to the Board by making them the collectors of the fees; the teachers are bound to sustain the loss of all school fees not collected by them, while they have no locus standi to sue the defaulters; whether, in the event of any of these teachers suing the said Board for what they consider in justice to be part of their stipulated remuneration, being withheld, it is competent for the majority of the Board to dismiss him arbitrarily and without cause shown; whether the said Board in 1881 dismissed Mr. William Smith, head master of the Invergordon public school, because he would not sign the Memorandum here referred to, by which his salary was to be lowered; whether notice of motion has been given by a member of the Board to further diminish the incomes of the teachers, contrary to the Memorandum of Agreement, and which motion, if carried, the teachers will be bound by on pain of dismissal; and, whether the Department means to take any steps to make the position of teachers of elementary schools in Scotland more secure and independent, by preventing School Boards from dismissing their teachers unless the causes for so doing are satisfactory to the Department?

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)&c.) (Clackmannan,

Such an agreement as that referred to in the Question is not considered satisfactory by the Department, either in respect of recognizing the responsibility of the school board, or as likely to promote the efficiency of a school, and they propose to communicate with the school board as to its terms. But such agreements rest with school boards, and teachers are not in ordinary course submitted to the Department, and must be interpreted like any other legal contract, as to the force of which their Lordships have no power to lay down any authoritative opinion. The question of the tenure of their office by teachers was fully considered by Parliament in 1882, when the Public School Teachers (Scotland) Act, 1882, was passed, and the Department has no present intention of proposing further legislation on the subject.