Yesterday the National Union of Teachers, meeting for their annual conference, claimed that teachers should have a 10% pay rise because graduates were leaving or, staying away from the profession, due to poor salaries. Having had two uncles and and aunt in the profession, I have a lot of respect for those who work in it. Teaching isn't the easiest job in the world, it's not everybody's cup of tea and, particularly nowadays, it involves certain risks. However, to request a 10% pay award at a time of global recession and instability when most of us are having to settle for below inflation pay increases, is simply ridiculous. One may grant that teachers aren't so well paid as workers in some of the professions, but they're hardly on starvation wages either. Moreover they get rather more annual holiday than most people working in industry dare dream of. I do a difficult and demanding job in industry but I don't even earn what a newly qualified teacher, barely out of nappies, earns. If I have to work hard and make do with what by the standards of the day is very little, so should they.