YET again, the government's flagship policy of commitment to education is exposed in tarnished reality as the extent teacher recruitment crisis is once more exposed in East Lancashire.

For hard on the heels of the biting and deserved criticism was that hurled by a Ribble Valley head teacher at government spin suggesting that all is well, now Mr John Challoner, headmaster of St Bede's RC High School in Blackburn, slams politicians for failing to understand the impact that teacher shortages had in a school.

It is a crisis which, surely, cannot be denied -- when earlier this year it was revealed that teacher recruitment has slumped to its lowest level for more than 30 years. And its impact at St Bede's, Mr Challoner warned parents, was already affecting the school -- as remaining staff are forced to carrying extra burdens and the stop-gap provision of supply staff meant that, almost always, pupils were being taught by people with no professional or emotional investment in either them or the school.

But what is serious about this is not just the disappearance of droves of teachers from the occupation -- a crisis in itself -- but also the erosion of the dedication that was always the guarantee of a sufficiency of teachers and, vitally, ones who were committed to giving their best.

If it has come to the departure where too few with that ideal remain and are being overworked and undervalued while the strain is taken up by coming and going teaching 'temps' with less commitment, then thousands of pupils are being cheated of a decent education.

A government that has pledged a good education as their right and fails to deliver will, surely, feel the parental backlash at the ballot box. If it is not to receive it, it must act now with urgent action to help and protect teaching -- on every front.