I READ with trepidation and a sense of deja vu the offer of a 3.7 per cent pay rise to teachers. Of course, it won't be enough to recruit and retain more teachers - it never is. Bribery will only go so far to bring about desired changes, it can never hope to be a sufficient and lasting incentive.

In truth, more money in the teachers' pay packets is only papering over the cracks, not attacking and solving the real problems. The once-respected and proud profession of teaching has been dragged in the dust of political correctness and Government measures to try to keep everyone happy, which cannot and will not work.

What teachers desperately need is to be allowed to get on with the job of teaching, without all the red tape, the constant 'big brother' monitoring, the mass of meaningless paperwork, the threat of ignorant and vengeful parents on the lookout for a chance to complain, and children, like their parents, who know their rights but never their responsibilities.

Teachers need to be given back their lost powers to drum into unwilling pupils the benefits of learning; to punish pupils as and when they see fit; to comfort a hurt child without the chance of being accused of abuse and to get back the sense of worth, of satisfaction in a job well done, in the certain knowledge that they and their jobs are valued and they have the full backing of the school heads and the full might of the education authorities on their side.

Heather Causnett,

Escrick Park Gardens,

Escrick, York.

Updated: 12:25 Monday, February 12, 2001