IT was more than informative to read in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph (June 3) the significant difference of mind, considered outlook and balanced analysis by journalists gainfully employed by this valued local paper.

On the one hand, the leader column, within a thoughtful contribution on "Chancellor faces rough austerity ride," makes reference to the growing concern for a possible future faced by empty classrooms, rejected or deserted by prospective or actual teachers who have found it more attractive and less masochistic to be equally gainfully employed elsewhere. On the other hand, at the base end of human ignorance, there was the "Blunt" column. Here, to no one's surprise was the almost pathological pursuit over recent years of all things that are teachers and teaching.

An advancement of understanding? A concern for the present and inseparable future needs of education?

Recently, there were 70 pages of teaching vacancies in an education journal.

In tandem with Blunt, the government and Mr Blunkett were "naming and shaming" while at the same time shelling out 16 odd million or so in a desperate emergency recruitment campaign.

M PICKUP, Haslingden Road, Guide, Blackburn.

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