Letter: Grateful of chance to educate about the situation of teachers
As a teacher it's always good to educate people so it is with pleasure that I can respond to the questions raised by W L Roberts of Oswestry (Letters October 8).
The answers are:
1. Yes, teachers do lose a day's pay every time they take industrial action as well as the loss of pension rights (this to add to the raid on teachers pay and pensions by the Conservative led coalition, one of the reasons for the action).
2. As you can see parents are not paying for their own inconvenience, although to describe looking after their own children as an inconvenience is a rather strange and sad statement to make.
3. Yes we do pay union fees, (is there a union that does not?) This goes to the running of the union primarily to ensure that all of its members, in my union's case some 300,000 members receive all the support that they may need in the increasingly hostile environment teachers find themselves in.
4. Either you are very young W L Roberts or you have a short memory, Thatcher made strike pay illegal so no we do not receive strike pay!
5. Finally, teachers do not receive inflated salaries. Starting pay and finishing pay for a teacher now remains the same, £21,000 for a highly trained, Masters degree awarded professional many of whom work upwards of 70 hours per week and up to three weeks of their so called long holidays a year.
You should get yourself qualified to join the profession it will take you up to five years, always assuming you are a possessor of A-levels. ITT placements are down by 30 per cent and teachers are leaving the profession in their droves.
You could work in an inner city school, there will certainly be vacancies, just look in the jobs pages.
Tim Wasdell, NASUWT Telford and Wrekin
