Special Report on a proposed Scheme for creating a "The establishment of a Mutual Assurance Society for Teachers, upon a secure and durable basis, in which teachers could confidently make periodical deposits, would relieve the anxiety which has long been experienced by them in providing the means of support in sickness and old age, and in contributing towards the maintenance of their families in case of death; and that such a society, if conducted under the auspices of my Lords the Committee. of Her Majesty's Privy Council on Education, would, as they confidently believed, be received with gratitude by the great body of teachers throughout the kingdom :" I was instructed by your Lordship to submit to you a statement of the reasons for which it was judged expedient that such an association should be formed, and of the plan on which it should be conducted. I beg now to lay this statement before your Lordship, regretting that by the pressure of other official duties this has so long been delayed. is unprovided for ness, to which he It is not often that the stipend of the schoolmaster affords The schoolmaster him the means of providing against sickness or old age, or in time of sickfor the maintenance of his family in case of his death. The is peculiarly very spirit he is of, and which makes him a good school- liable. master, has a tendency to make him an unworldly man. is but rarely that the funds of his school admit of an adequate maintenance being provided for him in times. of sickness, and, at the same time, a competent substitute to relieve him of his duties in the school. It Thus he is induced to toil on when the state of his health requires rest, and sometimes (it is to be feared) when his recovery is rendered thereby hopeless. case of his death. The destitution of his family, in case of his death, is The destitution aggravated by the fact, that the schoolmaster rarely, I ordentl believe, brings up his children to any mechanical or laborious calling, being accustomed to look forward to his own walk in life as a future occupation for them, or perhaps to some higher one. Schools often conducted by teachers who, from their years and infirmities, are unequal to that charge, to the great detri ment of education. The Minutes of the 25th August 1846, do not provide against this evil. It is desirable that the good schoolmaster I have frequently found schools in charge of teachers, who, from their years and infirmities, were unequal to the task, and whom the managers would have been glad to have removed had there been any other provision for their maintenance, and have reason to believe that the interests of education in other districts than my own suffer greatly from this cause. Their Lordships Minutes of the 25th August 1846, provide, it is true, for retiring pensions to be granted to teachers" who shall be rendered incapable, by age or infirmity, of continuing to teach their schools efficiently." They annex, however, as a condition, "that in all cases of application for pensions, a report shall be required from the Inspector, and from the trustees and managers of the schools, as to the character and conduct of the applicants, and the manner in which the education of the pupils under their charge has been carried on. The amount of the pension to be determined according to such report, and in no case to exceed two-thirds of the average amount of salary and emoluments annually received by the applicant during the period that the school shall have been under inspection. Their Lordships obviously contemplate, by this Minute, that the retiring pensions allowed to teachers should be dependent upon their merits. Without this condition, their grants would not indeed operate for the encouragement of zealous and efficient teachers; it involves, nevertheless, this result, that an inefficient teacher cannot become entitled to such a retiring pension as shall be sufficient for the maintenance of his family, and justify the promoters of the school in calling upon him to resign his situation. The great advantage of providing for schoolmasters' retiring allowances is not, therefore, secured by the Minutes in those cases where it is most important to secure it. It is the inefficient and not the efficient schoolmasters whose retirement is to be desired. In cases, moreover, where the schoolmaster's previous services may have entitled him even to the highest retiring pension provided for by the Minutes, the reduction of onethird of his income may sometimes operate to prevent him from retiring at that age when it would be for his own comfort, and perhaps for the advantage of the school, that he should do so. The allowance which he would have purchased for himself by his contributions to a superannuation fund, added to to add to the re their Lordships retiring pension, would place him, under such circumstances, in a position of independence. Having should be enabled tiring pension which he chall been a successful and a provident teacher, his old age might, from their Lordindeed, thus become one of comparative affluence; as it ships, some would have been if he had been a successful and a provident sion for himself. shopkeeper. further provi the most favour a superannuation In addition to the motives which render it expedient to The present time other classes of persons to provide, by the method of mutual able for creating assurance, for the contingencies of old age, of sickness, and fund for of death, those which I have assigned apply specially to teachers. the class of elementary teachers; and I have thought it the more desirable to bring them under your Lordships' notice now, as the teachers who, by the operation of the recent Minutes, have received considerable augmentations of income, would probably be prevailed upon to set apart a portion of such augmentations more readily now, than when this additional sum shall have passed into their current expenditure. ceiving public It seems but reasonable that the State should protect itself against that destitution of their old age in making its grants to teachers with which it is liable to be burdened, and, in this point of view, to be worthy of consideration, All teachers rewhether all such teachers as receive Government grants, grants should as well pupil teachers as masters and mistresses, should not tion towards a be required to pay a portion of such grants into a common fund, for the securing an adequate provision against destitution in old age. contribute a por common superannuation fund. the contributors upon a secure The teachers to whom public grants are at present paid, The number of whose number amounts, I believe, to not less than 4,500, to such a fund would, in themselves, be enough to constitute an association would place it upon a secure basis; and from the early age at which the basis. payments of the greater portion of the contributors would commence, the calculations to be made in respect to them, would be the most certain of which the nature of the subject admits. teachers receiv would probably A great majority of the persons who at present receive A majority of public grants, would, probably, be found to concur in the ing public grants arrangement, and the more readily, as the payments being concur in the annually deducted from the grants, would be made without arrangement. trouble, and the money, not having been received by them, would not be so much missed. ing of its other tributions to a superannuation There seems no reason why the State, claiming of its The State, claim other civil servants annual contributions to a superannua- civil servants contion fund, should make an exception in respect to the class of teachers. Their destitution in old age will not be less fund may claim complete, or their claims for relief, when infirmities come upon them, less urgent; claims which their certificates will be held to authenticate. it of these. The State would thus give its au ciple which, if upon, would con lic burdens, and Nor is it an unimportant consideration, in this view of thority to a prin- the subject, that by requiring every teacher who receives a generally acted public grant, to make a provision for old age, the State tribute greatly to would declare in a more public manner, perhaps, than could diminish the pub- by any other means be done, its sense of the binding nature raise the standard of the obligation which lies upon every man to make such a provision, would awaken a sense of this obligation in the minds of the pupil-teachers at an age when it is most likely to be lasting, and would give its authority to a principle which, if generally acted upon by persons having others in their employment, would contribute to diminish the public burdens, and to raise the standard of the public morals. of the public morals. The existing superannuation servants of the state. 5 Referring to the various plans on which superannuation fund of the civil funds, and funds for the support of widows and orphans, have, in other cases, been created, I find, in respect to the civil service of the State, that (by Treasury Minute from 1829, and by Act of Parliament since 1834) 24 per cent. has been deducted from all salaries not exceeding 100%., and per cent. from all above that sum, and contributed to a superannuation fund. The scale of allowances made by the State as a superannuation in the civil service was formerly four-twelfths of the salary after ten years' service, rising thence by one-twelfth every five years; but by the Superannuation Act this has been reduced, beginning now from three-twelfths after ten years' service, and rising by one-twelfth every seven years, until it becomes eighttwelfths. Superannuation allowance of the the East India The East India Company allows to its civil officers at civil servants of home (without requiring any contribution on their part), one-third of their salaries after ten years' service, onehalf after twenty years, and two-thirds after any greater number of years. Company. Funds for widows and orphans of To provide for their widows and orphans, it creates a the civil servants fund by deducting 2 per cent. annually from their salaries, by an annual grant of 4,600l, and by a guaranteed rate of interest. of the East India Company. Fund created by the Trinity House for the widows and orphans of its servants. Proposed fund for the widows The Trinity House, proceeding on the same principle, takes 2 per cent. indiscriminately from the salaries of bachelors, widowers, and married men, to provide annuities for widows and orphans. I am informed that the Government has been moved and orphans of by a large body of its civil servants, to create a fund on this principle, for the maintenance of their orphans and widows, out of the sums by which their salaries have been reduced. the servants of the State. Funds for the support of the There are two associations among the schoolmasters in orphans of the Scotland established for the support of widows and orphans. widows and One of the Burgh and Parochial Schoolmasters, established schoolmasters of forty years ago, and the other called the Edinburgh Society Scotland. of Teachers, established as far back as the year 1737. The funds of both are in a prosperous state, and to one or the other the great body of the teachers in Scotland, I believe, belong. To the last-mentioned society there are three classes of contributors, who pay respectively 41. 48., 31. 38., and 21. 28. annually; but bachelors and widows, two-thirds of these sums. Every contributor who is married at the time of his admission, or at any time afterwards when he becomes a married man, is required to make the single payment, under the name of a marriage-tax, of a sum of money dependent upon his own age and its excess over that of his wife, which sum may be assumed to vary according to these circumstances from 21. to 15%. In consideration of such payments, the widows of contributors of the first class receive annual pensions of 247. .; those of the second, 187.; and those of the third, 127. if, their wives not surviving them, they leave children, these pensions are paid to the children, until the youngest has attained the age of 16. yet It would not be sent to guarantee maintenance of orphans of expedient at pre a fund for the the widows and schoolmasters. An opportunity less be afforded butors to the fund, to secure their contribufamilies in case superannuation Their Lordships will not probably deem it expedient at present to make deductions from their grants to teachers as a means of providing for their widows and orphans; the contingencies which such a provision involves not being known with sufficient accuracy to justify the public guarantee which this would imply. It would, however, pro- should neverthe bably be expedient, whilst a provision for old age is alone to the contrirendered necessary, to give to contributors the option, by increased premiums (of which a table should be calculated) to provide, that in the event of their deaths before the periods when they shall have entered upon their annuities, the whole sums they may, up to that time, have contributed, before they shall shall be returned to their representatives. The reasons have entered on which render it inexpedient that their Lordships should It is inexpedient undertake any responsibility in regard to the application of that their Lorda fund for widows and orphans, appear to place also the guarantee the application of a application of a sick-fund beyond the legitimate sphere of sick fund for their control. The plan I have to submit to your Lordship rests on the principle that it is incumbent on the Government, in augmenting the stipends of the teachers, to whom it grants its certificates, to provide that the elementary education of the the repayment of tions to their of their death their annuities. ships should the benefit of teachers. Plan of a super annuation fund for certificated teachers and pupil-teachers. |