17
Further, under the present system,
Education Officers in most of the african Dependencies
are not appointed on particular scales of salary or for
particular duties, but are for the most part available
for any duties on which the Directors of Education
may see fit to employ them. The Director is thus able
to transfer officers from inspecting to teaching duties
as may seem expedient, and this elasticity in
organisation is in the general interests of efficiency. From this point of view the introduction of a system
of grades, which would necessarily tend to some extent
to make the organisation less fluid, is to be deprecated.
Finally it is pointed out that ducation
Officers cannot be saiu, when they are appointed, to
have as a rule such a degree of special knowledge or
experience as to justify them in being regarded as
speciall, qualified in their profession in the sense
that, for example, Aricultural Officers or Engineers
are so qualified. There seems therefore no justification
for granting them in the initial stages a higher salary
than Administrative Officers, and on this basis, if a
promotion bar is inserted in the scaleat £840, the effect
of the cnanye would be, not only to reduce the minimum
of the scale at present attached to junior Educational
appointments from £400 to £350, but also to reduce the
maximum from £920 to £840 in spite of the reduction
in the pension constant.
For all these reasons it is proposed to retain
the present system and to grant ducation Officers the
same long scale as ministrative Officers. It will be
unuerstood that by uucation Officers are meant those generally described as Superintendents of (Native) Education. Different considerations apply in the case or teachers of technical subjects, and of officers employed in European
education,