Letter: Teacher appraisal

Sir: If teachers agreed with your assertion that their unions do them "a great disservice" they would hardly join in such numbers and pay for the privilege ("Good teachers deserve to be paid more", 5 April).

If teachers were genuinely united in their beliefs about the fundamental issues surrounding their status and the education service, they could easily have put that into effect by joining the largest union. Thousands upon thousands have chosen not to do so.

You confuse cause and effect. Militancy has been the effect and not the cause of low pay rates.

Low pay rates are a function of the huge numbers involved and the reluctance of successive governments to raise the necessary finances from taxation. Electoral popularity prevails over proper, professional rates of pay for large public sector groups such as teachers and nurses. If pay depended upon respect and popularity why are our nurses so poorly paid?

You state that NASUWT "has a strike-ballot scheduled". That is the first I have heard about it. And by referring to NASUWT only as representing secondary school teachers you compound one factual error with another.

NIGEL de GRUCHY

General Secretary

National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers

London WC2