If the proposed changes to the teachers’ pension scheme come about, then those teaching staff who are in mid-career must face the stark alternatives.
Either they resign themselves to staying in the classroom until normal retirement age, with the statistical probability that they will be burned out long before then, and dead within a few months of retiring.
Or they must accept the necessity to retrain in mid-career, and take up a second, possibly less stressful occupation while they are waiting for their teaching pension to be paid.
New entrants to the profession will have to accept that this will be their own probable career pattern, too. But once prospective teachers realise this, will anyone actually want to become a member of the profession?
MALCOLM BEET
The Bank
Stoney Middleton
Derbyshire
