Expatriate Teachers

At the same time that New Zealanders heard of the proposal to pay New Zealand staff members of the University of the South Pacific a higher salary than the Polynesian staff, criticism of an even more damaging scheme of differential salaries appeared in the correspondence columns of the Tongan Chronicle, Tonga's weekly newspaper.

The criticisms concern the New Zealand Scheme of C-operation, whereby the New Zealand Government recruits teachers in New Zealand for the Tongan Government - on the condition that the Tongan Government pays them their full New Zealand salaries plus increments. At present there are seven such “expatriate” New Zealand teachers in Tonga and their salaries comprise nearly 25% of the entire Tongan education budget. These teachers form a resented elite.

Their salaries make them the highest paid civil servants in the country and they are said to rarely mix with local teachers.

An indication of their position is given in the Tongan Government's Civil Service list of January 1, 1973. At that time the NZ Principal of the Tongan Teachers’ College, Mr W. Scott, was earning $9,911.25, as compared with $6,600 paid to the Prime Minister, $4,500 to the Crown Solicitor, and $5,220 to the Minister of Education and other Cabinet Ministers. The Tongan Principal of Tonga High School, Mr P. Tapounia, M.A. $3,360, as compared with the $9,819 paid to the New Zealand expatriate headmaster of Tonga College, Mr L.J.P. Hyett, B.A. Dip. Tchg, Dip. Ed. Tongan teachers at Tonga College with overseas training on the other hand received salaries ranging from $600 to $1,230, with one M.A. graduate, Mrs V. Dixit, reaching the peak of $2,520, i.e. 25% of the NZ Principal's salary. Most received less than 10% of the NZ salary paid to Mr. Hyett.

page 33

There were 17 teachers at Tonga High School in 1973, eight New Zealanders and nine Tongans. The total salary bill for the school was $75,065, of which $65,141 was paid to the eight New Zealanders and only $9,924 to the nine Tongans!

In a recent issue of the Tongan Chronicle (April 11, 1974) a Tongan correspondent had this to say on the matter:

“How perceptive of Dr J.S. Hoadley (Tonga Chroncile March 28) to see through the facade of many of New Zealand's so-called Aid Programmes! Tonga is suffering at the moment from one such aid programme. Under this programme, the New Zealand Government magnanimously supplies Tonga with trained and experienced teachers.

These teachers, we are told, have sacrificed promotion opportunities, salary increases and civilised comforts to ‘bring light to the benighted inhabitants of darkest’ Tonga. This noble aid programme is known as the ‘Scheme of Co-operation’. Seven sacrificial New Zealanders are working in Tonga now under this scheme.

The Tongan Government spends about one quarter of its education budget on paying these seven teachers. The total amount, I believe, is more than the amount paid to all Tongan teachers in all the Primary Schools of Tongatapu. The Principal of Tonga High School earns almost twice as much as the Minister of Education and more than the Prime Minister. Who sacrifices? Who benefits? I, for one, would not mind giving up a little civilised comfort if I were paid that kind of salary. The New Zealand Government is assuredly the Schemer and the Tonga Government is decidedly the Co-operator.

I do realise that Tonga does not have sufficient qualified experienced teachers here at the moment to staff the High School and maintain the same academic standard. But if we count the number of Tongan graduates who have left the Kingdom and the teaching service in disgust because of the unreasonable discrepancies in salaries of expartiates and local graduate teachers, we will have more than enough to staff not one but two High Schools. I am convinced that these graduates would return voluntarily if the Tongan Government were prepared to pay them a higher salary - not nearly as high as that of the New Zealanders but at least comparable with those with parallel qualifications in other departments.

I suggest that we phase out the New Zealand teachers as soon as possible and use the resultant fund more profitably to ease the salary grievances of local graduates and teachers who are expected to be twice as conscientious as the New Zealand counterparts counterparts while being paid a salary a New Zealand freezing workers would scorn to take home.

We are always told that the Government is too poor - too poor to be able to afford discontent and grievance but rich enough to pay one New Zealander $11,000.

The New Zealand Government would be doing this country real service if it terminates this ridiculously one-sided co-operative programme, or at least, changes its name. ‘The Benefit The New Zealand Teachers Scheme’ would be honest and it would avoid needless misconceptions.

Samiuela Tong'onevai”

Along with the proposal for differential salaries at the University of the South Pacific, this “Scheme of Co-operation” is a pernicious phenomenon which could ultimately do irreparable damage to New Zealand's already tarnished image in the Pacific. Although page 34 Pacific Islands Governments may not complain for fear of New Zealand retaliation, a burning resentment is growing among indigenous teachers at the sight of their New Zealand counterparts being paid wages which make South Africa's apartheid wage structure seem trivial in comparison.

“Tonga Chronicle”, April 19, 1974

I would like to comment on Samiuela Tonga'onevai's letter in which he has a ‘go’ at one of (in his own words) ‘New Zealand's so-called Aid Programmes’.

Contrary to what Tonga'onevai believes, Tonga is, and indeed has been benefiting, not suffering, from the Scheme of Co-operation to which he refers. The New Zealand teachers at Tonga High School are trained, experienced, and very conscientious - in short, first class at their jobs. And I shudder to think what the standard will be like at Tonga High once these expatriates all depart. From about 20 ex-Tonga High students questioned on this topic, the answers were invariably something like: ‘I never came across a single Tongan teacher who could measure up to an expatriate (New Zealander) in terms of knowledge, experience, and responsibility in performance.’ Our Tongan teachers have a long way to go yet before they start demanding the kind of salaries currently being paid to New Zealand teachers!

Tonga'onevai is most unfair to the New Zealand Government when he says that it is ‘assuredly the Schemer’. In point of fact, his claim only goes to show that he ought to check his facts (if they are facts at all) before he writes on a complicated and delicate subject. For his enlightenment, however, I would suggest that he approach the Education Department and ask either the Hon. Minister or the Director if it is true that the N.Z. Minister for Education and for Island Affairs has said that New Zealand would give a sympathetic hearing to a request from Tonga for New Zealand to pay for the salaries of all New Zealand teachers at Tonga High School, provided, of course, that Tonga took the initiative and asked. Tonga'onevai may also ask if the Department has done a thing about it. The answer is most likely to be in the negative, judging by the way the Department has properly ‘mucked up’ many of the overseas scholarship applications for the current year. I'm darned sure that had Tonga cared to ask, or rather, had the Education Department done its homework, New Zealand would have been only too pleased to oblige.

Tonga'onevai seems to imply that the New Zealand teachers at Tonga High should not get as much as they are now receiving. Why shouldn't they? If Tonga wants their services, then she has to pay for them. I, for one, do not expect them to be as patriotic as their Tongan colleagues who have left, as quickly as they had entered, the teaching profession to become Assistant Secretaries etc., mainly because of higher salaries in the latter. Again, what has the Education Department done about this ‘internal brain-drain’? Not much, apart from sending more and more students overseas to be trained as teachers who surely will, as soon as they return to Tonga, wave goodbye to the Education Department and pole-vault over the fence to greener pastures.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Samiuela Tonga'onevai for the chance to present what I believe to be the other side of the picture.

F. MOLENI.

page 35

“Tonga Chronicle”, 25 April, 1974.

F. Moleni's letter should have been published in the Tongan version of the Chronicle as well as the English. Amongst the comments that might be made on this letter are:–

1.	New Zealand is fortunate as being one of the few English speaking countries where teachers are well paid.
2.	There are some very good Tongan teachers at work in Tonga now. If there were parity with their opposite numbers in the Civil Service and there were greater opportunities for training, there could be many more. With better economic reward, many would find it easier to stay in their chosen profession in a time of page 36 rising cost of living. It should also be remembered that those teachers who have moved out into the Civil Service are often still using their talents as teachers in the Civil Service education and they are still working for Tonga.
3.	In all countries, but particularly developing ones, as well as academic and teaching techniques, the inculcation of self-confidence is a most important part of a young teacher's training. Such a sweeping statement on practising Tongan teachers under- mines this and is damaging to the profession, particularly to those young teachers who have recently complated their training, many of whom are carrying their new responsibilities well.

I write as a private person but my colleagues in the School of Education of the Univer-
sity of the South Pacific would certainly endorse this over the Diploma students from Tonga that they have trained.

Margaret Blundell,
U.S.P. Centre, Tonga.

“Tonga Chronicle”, May 2, 1974.

I wish to refer to Samuela Tonga'onevai's letter and F. Moleni's letter, both referring to the New Zealand teachers recruited by the Tonga Government under the New Zealand Scheme of Co-operation.

The idea that the Scheme of Co-operation is part of New Zealand's Aid Programme should be dispelled. The Scheme is merely and primarily an agreement between the New Zealand and Tonga Governments that New Zealand will assist Tonga in the recruitment of teachers whom Tonga would either appoint or reject. If appointed, Tonga will
pay them the equivalent and any subsequent increases of their New Zealand salaries. Western Samoa once adopted this Scheme of Co-operation but they have now done away with it. Although some say that their standard of education has dropped as a result, it is to be doubted whether this is really a significant decline in view of other advantages. Fiji adopted the New Zealand Scheme of Co-operation and is still retaining it to a limited extent.

When the Scheme of Co-operation was initiated there were good reasons for Tonga being a party to it was understood, as often explained to us, that once Tongans were trained they would take over and the recruitment of New Zealand teachers would be phased out. As Tongans become qualified, it appears that there has been little effort to phase out the recruitment of New Zealand teachers and naturally Tongan graduate teachers who expected increasing responsibilities with corresponding prospects would become discontented as they see no future for them in the hierarchical organisation of the educational system. Although I am against localisation for the same of localis-
ation, I believe some teachers have just reasons for their discontentment.

Admittedly, there are certain subjects in the curriculum for which New Zealand teachers would still be required. Most Tongan graduate teachers posses degre in either History or Geography. Thus New Zealand teachers would still be required to teach English, pure Science and Commerce at the higher forms (unless they are to be replaced by Peace Corps or C.U.S.O. teachers). As Tongans return with degrees in English, pure Science and Commerce, then there should be a quicker phasing out the New Zealand teachers, Peace Corps and C.U.S.O. teachers.

There has been little or no sign of phasing out the New Zealand teachers at Tonga page 37 High School and as a result some Tongan graduate teachers have left to areas of better prospects, at least for the time being, in the civil service where their contributions would be recognised and rewarded accordingly. If F. Moleni interviews some of the graduates who have left the teaching profession he will find, I believe, that salary is only one of the main reasons why they left. But anyway, F. Moleni is closer to some truth when he places some blame for the exiting discontentment of Tongan teachers on the Educ-
ation Department.

I disagree with both Tonga'onevai and Moleni with regard to their assessments of Tongan and New Zealand teachers. Tonga'onevai exaggerates when he refers to Tongan teachers as being more conscientious than New Zealand teachers. I have seen some Tongan teachers who are very conscientious and others who are not really worth the money they receive. Similarly, some of the New Zealand teachers are very conscientious and others are not. I have known of some New Zealand teachers who have proved
so unsatisfactory that Government has been forced to terminate their contracts.

If Tongan graduates are given some of the administrative responsibilities at Tonga High School and replace completely New Zealand teachers who could be replaced, I doubt whether there will be any appreciable drop in the academic standard and achievements of the school. On the other hand, Tonga High School has acquired some undesir-
able social characteristics because of the lack of understanding by expatriate teachers of the social mores of the Kingdom. The previous Principal of the School, with good intentions, relaxed the discipline to the extent that the image of the School outside the
classroom was just about the worst it has been for years.

F. Moleni has overstressed the achievements of the New Zealand teachers by stating that he has ‘never come across a single Tongan teacher who would measure up to an expatriate (New Zealander) in terms of knowledge, experience and responsibility or performance.’ May I point out that I have been more impressed with some Tongans who have now left the teaching profession, than with some expatriates in view of F. Moleni's criteria plus dedication. A New Zealand teacher, who did not take much interest in his work once told me that his ‘professional presence in the classroom is what he's paid for by the Tongan Government regardless of his teaching ability’.

Tongan teachers, if given time and opportunity, are capable of giving meritorious performance which would measure up to the performance of expatriates. I recall that in 1967 when New Zealand devalued its dollar the New Zealand teachers demanded compensation with threats of resignations. The Goernment finally agreed to compensate them and the threat disappeared but the threats could occur again in the future for
one reason or another. Therefore it is time to recognise the value of our Tongan teachers and treat them in ways in which their love and desire to serve their country could be fostered. Also, if Tongans want to replace the expatriate teachers, they have to study hard to acquire the necessary qualifications and then return home to serve conscientiously instead of grumbling and doing very little work.

Finally, I would like to thank Miss Blundell for her kind comments in last week's Chronicle regarding Tongan teachers. I agree with her, Tongan graduate teachers who have left the teaching profession but remain in the service of the Kindgom are not really a loss. What I would regard as a loss are those who have left Tonga altogether and I feel that these people have little right whatever to criticise how things are done in Tonga if they have failed to remain and offer gainful contributions to their country.

S. TU'UTA.