TO THE militant shenanigans which characterise the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers must be added the qualification that the union's moderate general secretary, Doug McAvoy, evidently hopes will add some balance to the events - that the average delegate is well to the Left of the average member.

That, of course, was plain from last year's ructions - when a conference call for a one-day strike over class sizes was promptly overturned in a national ballot of members.

However, even with this condition borne in mind, it does seem that a reluctance to accept the need for accountability now infects teaching generally.

For strident though the calls of the Left-wing may be today at the NUT conference for industrial action over school league tables and inspections, are they not echoed in the less-militant sectors of the profession - as, for instance, with last week's call by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers for the abolition of the school inspectorate? And though this outlook may be difficult to separate from the anti-government politicking that inspires many activist teachers, does not the underlying antipathy for school tests, league tables and inspections suggest a negative attitude towards the raising of standards through the exposure of failings in schools?

Delegates at the NUT conference today would go so far as urging ballots for industrial action in any school where government inspectors "victimise" a teacher who is given a bad report.

Yet how can any responsible teacher advocate the curbing of the inspection system when, with less than a third of the nation's schools examined, the evidence already is that pupils are under-achieving in half the country's primary schools and 40 per cent of secondary schools?

Those teachers who are against school inspections are surely defending the indefensible - and seeking to do so by a cover-up that would delude parents and communities about the quality of education in their locality.

And if teachers are to convince parents that their profession really has the raising of standards at heart, they will have during this conference season and afterwards to display a more constructive attitude to that cause than that of seeking to protect the bad teachers from exposure, come what may.

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