Comment

Burnham The Burnham Technical Committee has registered provisional agreement on a formula for the grading of heads of departments and principals. This is dependent upon an agreement, yet to be announced, on the grading of courses. These plans to rationalize a chaotic situation are generally welcomed. Colleges and departments have vastly increased in size since the salary scales were given their present form in 1951, but the differentials for major responsibility have not kept pace with this growth and there is wide variation of practice between authorities, between colleges and even between departments of the same college. An important incentive to effort on the part of teachers is the prospect of promotion related to increased responsibility. For the good health of the system it is desirable that such incentives should follow a coherent and predictable pattern. The assumptions in the committee's formulae are that level of responsibility is measured by volume of work and that volume of work is measured by weighted student hours. This raises three questions: What is a student hour? Are student hours, as weighted by the committee, a fair measure of level of responsibility? Is the grading of posts on this basis likely to establish the right incentives for growth?