HERE we go again -- teachers threatening another strike.

For hard on the heels of the strike ballot forced by Left-wing activists on the National Union of Teachers over the issue of pay being linked to pupils' exam results, the supposedly more moderate NASUWT now also threatens to strike to protect their six-week summer holidays.

The move comes as several education authorities are consulting on switching schools from three to five terms a year, with a four-week summer break, but longer holidays during the spring and autumn.

Experts say the shorter summer holiday would mean children are less likely to forget what they had learned before the long lay-off.

And, I'm sure, many parents who go out to work would welcome the shorter interval cutting down on the arrangements they have to make to have their children looked after while schools are shut for the summer break.

But, hey, who cares about the kids' education or the parents' needs? -- not the NASUWT. "We all know we need an extended break at the end of the school year to de-stress, wind down and look forward to getting away and get out of school so we can survive," said national executive member Paul Mundt.

And Staffordshire delegate Richard Hinton told the union's annual conference: "We have had the wonderful prospect of parents pushing their ideas forward to amend our working conditions, which I find deplorable."

Don't parents need to de-stress?

And, as the teachers' employers and paymasters, don't they have a right to promote changes in school arrangements -- especially if their children may benefit educationally as well?

You would not think so from the unanimous resistance at the NASUWT's conference.

Heaven knows, most workers would be overjoyed if they got the month off that the teachers say is too short.

But why all the pretence that a six-week break is a necessity?

It was begun in the first place so that, in the days of labour-intensive agriculture, the kids could help with the harvest. That reason has long gone -- along with any justification for another selfish strike.