Letters: Teachers need pay rises

Teachers deserve a raise, says a reader. Photo/Getty Images

Re Teachers doing it tough! (Letters Saturday March17)

I totally agree.

How is it other sectors are given, in some cases, enormous salary increases, when teachers earn a pittance for a job so time-consuming and of greatest importance?

One that, more than likely, with all the knowledge great teachers imbued on them during their school years, put high earners in their positions.

Without the incentive, what will it take to make the Government realise that teachers need better salaries to entice more teachers and more school leavers to choose teaching as a career?

It's a difficult job teaching, counselling, coaching etc (the list goes on) but it's a wonderful, gratifying career!

So give teachers the salary they so deserve.
(Abridged)

Viv Radley
Rotorua

Make lake seats comfy

A plea to the section of our Council dealing with public seating.

When selecting seating for the (questionably necessary) redesigned lake front please consider seating with a comfortable back such as the present ones, not the stark ugly benches without a back as are currently gracing the new city centre.

Joy Maskell

Lynmore

Case for gardens rename

Each time I visit the Government Gardens it irks me that it still has its out-of-date name.

Over 70 years ago when I began work at the Tourist Department, officially known as the Department of Industries and Commerce, Tourism and Publicity, Rotorua was very much a government-run town.

The Tourist Department ran the Government Gardens and all within its precincts. That included the Blue Baths, the Ward Baths - now Polynesian Spa, and the Main Baths, later known as Tudor Towers.

The Tourist Department also collected fees for their provision of the tennis courts, bowling greens and the nine-hole golf course. Other areas were made available for cricket and athletics.

Now that so much has changed since the old government-dominated days, is it not time to rename our gardens with a name that reflects its Rotorua and Te Arawa flavour?

Was not the land originally gifted by the local iwi for the good of Rotorua?

A name change which is both local- and tourist-friendly would be ideal, so let us start the ball rolling or should we say, the names rolling.
(Abridged)

Alf Chote
Rotorua