Teachers’ strike threat

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 14

Teachers’ strike threat

Sir, — I. T. J. Lindsay does not seem to realise that his sixth-form physics teacher is teaching to an explicit national standard and that he and his pupils publicly stand or fall at the end of the year. As far as I know there have not been, since “proficiency” was abolished, any publicly explicit national standards to regulate and assist primary teachers. As long as secondary education alone has a responsibility to well-defined national academic standards I cannot admit that the two services are comparable. — Yours, etc., J. DUGDALE. October 1, 1975. Sir, — I agree with A. H. Bennetts contention that teaching in the early, formative years is the most important of all. Unfortunately it appears that our educational policy-makers do not. The present • three-year course for trainee teachers appears to be designed to cater for, rather than to eliminate, people who are neither prepared nor competent to understand primary education at a theoretically rigorous level. Relevant, but complex, topics such as behaviour modification are given brief and superficial treatment while hours are wasted on tivia. The products of an upgraded course should be paid no less than graduates, and no less than secondary or university teachers. Appointment should be on merit rather jhan age and the best teachers encouraged to teach rather than admin-

ister. However much Mr Bennett may deplore financial reward, it is the only method likely to bring sufficient numbers of competent teachers into the primary service. — Yours, N. B. LINDLEY. September 30, 1975. [This correspondence is now closed.—Editor.]