WHO would have thought we would witness a bunch of well-paid, university-educated professionals neglecting their responsibilities and behaving like petulant adolescents?

The sight of teachers forming the hard core of a strike of public-sector workers over their financial compensation package was frankly disgusting.

Although they perform their duties in academic institutions, surely they are aware of the financial realities of this country?

Have they noticed that those employed in the private sector have not only taken hits in salary and pension and been asked to work more for less, but have also been laid off or redundant?

That’s because they are at the heart of the economic engine of this country – no cosseted public sector for them.

It’s a bit rich to ask the public to continue to put money into the pot to maintain the lot of teachers who work 38 (comparatively short) weeks a year, get a national scale incremental salary and a ring-fenced pension.

Time for the teachers to be taught a lesson – if pensions are not renegotiated as part of the total package of remuneration then cuts and redundancies will have to follow.

Allan Charlesworth, Old Earswick, York.

• THERE have been thousands of public-sector workers on strike and demonstrating against Government policies on pension reforms, changes and alterations.

I have a lot of sympathy for the teachers, but things have to change; there needs to be fairness all round, and we simply do not have the money or the wherewithal to carry on with things as they are.

I feel many of the teachers are also upset by more than the big changes to their pensions.

Teachers have been messed about, pushed around, not consulted, ignored by governments for decades now.

Their goalposts are forever being moved.

The curriculum is amended almost monthly, the “tick-box” scenario is horrendous, the petty rules, Criminal Record Bureau checks, health and safety legislation, aggressive parents’ rights and ever-increasing tests and assessments must be so stressful – no wonder they are at boiling point.

But who is suggesting any alternative policies or how this extra funding can be found?

Taxpayers’ money is given away by the millions in foreign aid, yet the real culprits of our dire financial position, the banks and the last Labour government, are never made to suffer.

David Quarrie Lynden Way, Holgate, York.