§ Colonel WEDGWOODasked the President of the Board of Education (1) whether discontent is being caused among teachers in secondary schools owing to the fact that new appointments are being made at salaries higher than those which old members of the staffs are receiving;
(2) whether his attention has been called to a statement by the Chairman of the Stoke-on-Trent Education Committee on 5th May of this year that secondary school teachers were very migratory; whether this migratory tendency is due to the fact that the secondary school teachers are gravely dissatisfied with the conditions of pay;
(3) whether, in many cases, old members of the staff of secondary schools are not receiving salaries to which their qualifications entitle them in accordance with the latest grades of pay?
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§ Mr. FISHERI have not seen the statement of the Chairman of the Stoke Education Committee to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. I must admit that the salary arrangements adopted for secondary schools by local education authorities and governing bodies in different parts of the country show considerable diversity and some incoherence. A Standing Joint Committee of representatives of local education authorities on the one side, and associations of teachers on the other, under the chairmanship of Lord Burnham, to secure by agreement, on a national basis, the orderly and progressive solution of the salary problem in secondary schools maintained by local education authorities, or secondary schools in which local education authorities accept responsibility for the salary scale, is now sitting, and I hope that its labours will shortly result in a great improvement of the present position.