Education Department,
Hong Kong.
Dec. 16th, 1937.
30
Sir,
We have the honour to thank you for your letter number 2113/1937 of
5th May, 1937.
Now that a new scale for mistresses is in operation, we would like
to point out that the prospects and emoluments for graduates in this Colony compare even more unfavourably with those in England and other
Colonies.
We would also respectfully call your attention to the fact that the
relative salaries paid to men and women graduates in England, the Dominions.
and other Colonies, including West Africa, are much more favourable to
women than those in Hong Kong even under the old scale.
this inequality is very much more marked.
On the new scale
As you will see by the Burnham Salary Scales in Appendix 1, the
maximum salary scale for women graduates in England is 80% of that for men
graduates; whereas in Hong Kong the maximum for women under the old scale
We would is 74%, and under the new scale is only 59% of that for men.
further point out that in Hong Kong women graduates do the same work as
the men, and generally in the same schools.
We, therefore, request that the new experimental scale be not
applied to graduate mistresses, and that at the first favourable opportunity, the prospects of graduates may be improved by the appointment of a woman graduate inspector, a graduate headmistress of Belilios Public School, and
These posts a graduate senior mistress at the Central British School. should carry salaries comparable with those paid to women in similar posts in England, and justly proportionate to those paid to men holding senior
posts in Hong Kong.
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