DURING the General Election campaign, Tony Blair said that education would be one of the Labour government's top priorities. This promise is looking a bit hollow now.

Mr Blair promised smaller class sizes and more administrative assistants for teachers, to free their time for teaching.

But there are vacancies for teachers and a smaller number of school-leavers applying for teacher training. The main reason is because our teachers are among the lowest-paid in Europe.

And, now, the Government want to introduce performance-related pay. That will really help morale when two teachers doing the same job will be on different rates of pay.

It's unfair anyway, because a teacher in a quiet rural area has a far better chance of obtaining good exam results from his or her pupils than a teacher in a inner city school where there are a lot more problems.

Unless, we pay our teachers what they are worth, then we will see more and more teachers drift away from the profession which can only be detrimental to the standard of education in Britain.

J LEE, Ramsgreave Drive, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.