No help wanted
Sir : It is a frequently noted paradox that those who are paid the most for writing and talking about education are furthest from the classroom, and it is significant that your correspondent, David Rogers, should assume that teachers oppose the introduction of auxiliaries on 'historical' grounds. The taut and the other unions have made clear, in an avalanche of letters and pamphlets, that they would welcome assistance of the kind envisaged by Dr D. Ross Chestermann, but what they will not tolerate is another attempt by the Government to patch up inadequacies in the recruitment of teachers at all levels by employing unqualified people One wonders what on earth the Government proposes to pay auxiliaries, when the gross pay of a fully-trained non-graduate teacher is a little over £14 per week and that of a graduate with good honours not much more than £18—and this was the result of the now distant pay increase mentioned by your corres- pondent as having been wrung from the last Con- servative government.
When he talks of 'sheer built-in conservative reaction' to new ideas, your correspondent seems to overlook the fact that innovations in teaching tech- nique are not only welcomed but devised and pioneered by serving teachers. They, of all people, would be delighted to have more assistance in the maintenance and construction of visual aids and the like. David Rogers must have a very poor view of the teaching profession if he thinks that its members would permit their elected representatives to obstruct further progress in this direclon on the grounds of pique or bloody-mindedness Unfor- tunately, it seems that teachers must emulate the militancy of doctors before their work may be more adequately rewarded and their status improve correspondingly.
Ronald Fletcher 220 Haynes Park Court, Slewins Lane. Hornchurch, Essex
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