I don’t know why all this fuss about teaching hours... the last letter being sent by Paul Cassar (TMID, 18 July). It is not as if teaching hours were established yesterday. If Mr Cassar and all the others think that teaching is a cushy job they could have easily opted to be a teacher because I am sure that when they were 16-18 years old these teaching conditions were already there.

For example, police personnel and soldiers can receive their pension after 25 years of service. Therefore, if they begin their career at 18 years of age, they have their pension at 43 and they can still do another job and still receive their pension. Let me make it clear – I have nothing against them... so good luck to them if they have these work conditions. But you don’t see any letters in the press attacking these conditions.

When I was 18 years old and chose what I wanted to do in life I knew about this. If I wanted to receive my pension at 45 years of age, I would have opted to be a policeman or a soldier but I don’t like the job and I am sure that most of the policemen and policewomen and soldiers did not decide to become such because of the 25 years’ service rule.

That would have surely been an added incentive.

It is the same thing with teaching. I am sure that most of the teachers did not decide to become teachers just because of the summer holidays and, Mr Cassar, they are not four months of holidays. It is two months in summer – 2 days of which are public holidays (15 August and 21 September), two weeks in Christmas (two days of which are holidays for all – Christmas and New Year), one week in Easter (one day of which is a public holiday – Good Friday) and another one week if you add the November mid- term holidays and the carnival holidays... so if you do your mathematics well it counts up to between two-and-a-half to three months.

So cut all this envy about teaching hours. Again, the solution is simple – if you think that teaching is a cushy job you should have chosen to be a teacher.

Then you would have known what is like to have 25 children for a whole six hours and after all that you have piles of corrections and preparation to get done when you go home.

Peter Carabott

Marsaxlokk

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Reading your newspaper, every summer, I am at a loss at to the reason why certain people, such as Mr Paul Cassar (TMID, 18 July) do not join the teaching profession, so as to benefit from the various advantages that teachers have, as according to them.

Franco Farrugia

Gwardamangia