PARENTS and keen-to-learn pupils will be concerned at the disclosures today that schools in Blackburn and Darwen had the highest rate of teacher vacancies in the North West last year.

Also disturbing is the evidence that this situation is part of a worsening trend that has developed over three years.

And while this may be coupled with a teacher-recruitment crisis nationally said to be the worst for 30 years, we have already seen evidence its impact in our region with a string of head teachers in East Lancashire using the 'speech night' season to deliver stinging criticism of alleged government indifference to the problem and of being added to by teachers suffering from excessive and bad pupil behaviour.

There was also a sharp insight into the difficulty schools are having in filling specialist vacancies when last month it emerged that GCSE students at an acclaimed Blackburn high school had been taught by seven different teachers in maths classes since Christmas.

But what is also of concern is that the recruitment problem is sharpest in Blackburn with Darwen which has a gained a strong reputation in education for achievement, winning special Education Action Zone status for groups of its schools and with its education authority also being awarded prestigious beacon status.

Certainly, the contrast of its vacancy levels with the much healthier ones in the surrounding schools run by Lancashire Education Authority points to the need for an inquiry into the reasons for the difference. And that task ought to include an examination of claims by a teachers' trade union leader that Blackburn with Darwen's drive for success has piled such pressure of teachers that it had gained a reputation for being a difficult place to work.

There may be other factors at play, such as doubt whether the recent 3.5 per cent pay rise for teachers is sufficient to attract new staff. And while the education authority has gained extra government money to supplement the wages of teachers it wants to keep, it needs to determine why it has been losing the battle.