Mr Jarvis and the NUT
Sir: T. E. B. Howarth goes over the edge when he says that Mr Fred Jarvis of the NUT secured pay scales for teachers, so inflationary that teacher employment has had to be cut. It's meant to be a back-handed compliment, of course, but even backhanded compliments should have a basis of fact. One fact is that Mr Fred Jarvis has never securedanythingwhatever forteachers. Another fact is that pay differentials among 'teachers' have been whittled down by trendy-lefty activists, who control such bodies as the NUT, to the point where no sane and educated adult would become a teacher, if there was anywhere else to go.
I have a colleague with a BSc and a PhD, who came into teaching in the belief that he had something to offer society. He thought he would be valued, as someone prepared to pass his knowledge on to the next generation. He has come within 40 pence of qualifying for a rent rebate on his council house, as a person in special need. He spends most of his day with pupils who are doing the 'common course', that is, he is child-minding. He looks forward to the day when he will be able to buy a second-hand car.
T. E. B. Howarth has not even begun to understand the problems of education.
W. S. Brownlie 19 Hunterhill Road, Paisley
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