Commenters dismiss teachers as scrounging, unworldly incompetents, and urge witch hunts. They never, apparently, ask themselves how such contempt is supposed to attract good teachers. I know many fine British teachers, and lack of respect is driving them out. Will you take their place? Could you?

Dr. Annette Laing, Statesboro, USA

The fundamental problems are: 1° Inadequate teacher training and a failure to spot quickly enough those who are not cut out for the profession. 2° Parents who expect teachers to make up for their own failures in bringing up their children and who encourage them to rubbish their teachers.

John Jansen, Montlucon, France

One can become a teacher after a year's training course, if you have a degree. Too many people "believe" they can be good teachers but not everybody is good or dedicated, there are people after the job with very long holidays. Unfortunately, this affects results & gives all teachers a bad name.

Mar, London,

Socialism in action, thanks in no small part to our comrades in the NUT.

In the real world (where performance actually matters) these people would be sacked.

Chris, London, The City,

There are incompetent teachers & they should go. Some would be OK with a different age group. But constant gov. interference & policy changes can make life hell for teachers. Good teachers in the past were condemned by the trendy educ. establishment because they taught effectively, not trendily.

Dave, Wrexham,

It isn't just the pupils who suffer. I work in a 'challenging' secondary school. Imagine trying to teach whilst pupils in the adjoining classsroom are enjoying a riot; worse, imagine having to teach those self-same pupils immediately afterwards. And these incompetents get paid the same as me!

Maverick, Oxfordshire, UK

There's always one teacher within a school who is failing, and always for the same reason, classroom discipline.
I suspect this is a constant. It fulfils some sort of psychological need.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

Whenever the subject of schools comes up for discussion, Judy of Liverpool launches an attack on teachers. What is it Love: were you once told off in the classroom have been unable to recover from the shock of discovering you weren't considered to be perfect?

Robert, Hull, East Yorkshire

Could we adopt the same proposals for incompetent Labour politicians, please ? If we had such a system in place we would have had no 10p income tac fiasco, no illegal war in Iraq and possibly some policies which actual help not hinder ordinary working people in England.

R.M., London, England

Terry, pupils manifestly do not 'know best about a teacher's performance'. A pupil cannot know what a teacher is aiming for in the long run. There are already commercially sponsored 'teacher of the year' awards, which are not taken seriously by most in the profession, as they are pupil-led.

Alasdair Kelly, LONDON, United Kingdom

Great idea, sack them, I'll be laughing my socks of when you try to replace them!
Another great idea, get the pupils to decide who's incompetent . I'm rolling on the floor laughing. Are these the same pupils that have no discipline, no respect and are " all about me" just like their parents?

steve, london, london

To continue: A patient can't rate his doctor before the course of treatment is finished - it is only as adults that we can assess how successful or otherwise our teachers were. The idea that school should be a democracy is one of the reasons discipline problems are so prevalent.

Alasdair Kelly, LONDON, United Kingdom

Michael, Serborne: I attended an 'Independent' school and recall three incompetent teachers. They were not sacked despite utterly mediocre performance. The school evidently was aware of the limitations of these teachers as none of them taught at 'A' level.

Dectora, London, UK

I pity our children who are put through a school system that is now second rate. WHEN oh WHEN is someone with a brain actually going to grab this by scruff of neck and take us back to the competent and disciplined school system that we had BEFORE Labour started tinkering with it ,and messing it up.

John, Woking, UK

Everyone knows most people only go into teaching because they can't think what else to do, they've got a third class degree and they know that if they don't touch up the kids they'll be on thirty grand in five years.

Is it really so wrong that we expect them to be able to do their jobs?

lucy, poole,

It is not incompetent teachers, it is a combination of disruptive attention seeking pupils, food additives, lax parents that do not socialise their children, poor diet, the celebrity society that does not need qualifications, and old syllabi and teaching methods that do not reflect modern attitudes.

nick fawcett, Tonbridge, Kent

Ha! One incompetent teacher per school?? There were more than that at my school and I was in private education!

Jonathan, Bolton,

I worry about the definition of 'incompetent' to be used by the General Teaching Council.
Does it mean "incapable of imparting knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, a subject"?
Or does it simply mean "an insufficiently Politically Correct person, known to hold non-Marxist views"?,

Mike Bibby, St Albans, England -not EU

Rather interesting that this is put out to the press after a bad bad day for Labour.!! poor election results.
Many Teachers are a joke and not worth their pay.
What we need is for a student to prove poor education because of poor teachers and get compensation.

Jay, Manchester , uk

If there is an issue with competence in teaching and, having seen the effects of OFSTED on morale and performance, I doubt it is as extensive as claimed, we need to look first at the levels of support and training for teachers. Yes it is wrong to leave teachers to struggle but no Magic Roundabout.

Harry Willis , North Yorkshire ,

There are some poor teachers, but there are far greater numbers of deluded parents who think that their darling offspring could get the grades to become doctors, lawyers etc if only they were 'better' taught. Face it, some of your children are just not that bright!

Clint, Brighton, UK

I know some excellent teachers, unfortunately I know some incompetent ones as well and have met a few incompetent head teachers as well who I would like to see get the sack. Good teachers should be rewarded the bad ones should leave the profession permanently.

Deb, Norwich,

It is not hard to believe that there is one bad teacher per school. That they stay in place is one of the downsides of having a strong union. Unions will fight to the wire to protect their members even if they are blatantly incompetent, but then this is true of most jobs where a union is powerful.

mike gee, bournemouth, uk

I am not a teacher and I know I will never be one. However, teaching is an intensely personal job. If you want better brains to join the profession make the profession respectable and not left at the mercy of yobs, bureaucrats and pikey parents, as it is today.

Prabhat, UK,

The "46" statistic is meaningless on its own. What fractions of civil servants, doctors, pilots and chief executives were judged incompetent since 2001? And what happened to them?

It seems to me it is the competence of the General Teaching Council we might be questioning.

Jamie Gilmour, Gtr Manchester, UK

Who know best about a teacher's performance in the classroom? Pupils, of course.

So, why not have half-termly surveys of pupils' views of their teachers' classroom performance? This would keep every teacher up to the mark.

We could call it democracy in action. It would work.

Terry, London, UK

Shifting a problem does not solve it - however, what is "bad teaching" to the current education establishment (government/unions/academics) may not be "bad" as far as the consumers(pupils/parents) are concerned. Promote competition+discipline+quality, discard weak, coursework based, qualifications

Peter, London,

Incompetence is the inability to perform!
When I have to teach my daughter trigonometry, calculus, mechanics and quantitative chemistry because the local teachers are unable to do so - that is what I consider incompetence!

peterj, aberdeen,

This government appears to think that effective pay cuts and having untrained civil servantstelling teachers how to do their jobs is going to get us better teachers? Maybe there should be competence testing for politicians!

Tim, Eastbourne, UK

In fact, genuinely incompetent teachers have been re-cycled for some considerable time, and in three ways: many of them were made heads, whilst most of the remainder became advisers in local education authoriti and Ofsted inspectors.A few became politicians, or unelected government advisers.

Robert, Hull, East Yorkshire

Now if only we could find a way of removing incompetent civil servants.....and move them to another department, say the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Perhaps they already have.

I expect teachers would like to sack some incompetent pupils.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Yep, sack them all, all 24,000. I just can't figure out who the schools will replace them with, though. After all a three year imposed pay deal, below inflation, is a fabulous incentive to take up the career. I suppose there could be a Rapid Enhanced Training Scheme for replacements. 2 Days?

david, chelmsford,

This makes as much sense as moving pederast priests to a different parish and hoping they won't reoffend.

If they are not up to standard they need remedial training, if that doesn't work they need an alternative career.

Ian, Chelmsford,

Any chance of recycling bad Prime Ministers - that doesn't mean letting them have free train rides.

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

How interesting that there are only 46 failing teachers in half a million. If that were anywhere near true, how come I work with three of them?

judy, Liverpool, England

In line with the cosy modern trend of rewarding incompetence, give them a pay rise.

Bob Reeve, Brighton,

The problem with many public sector roles is the unions have too much influence...I would dread to try and sack a popular teacher with union connections even if they were completely incompetent.The public sector needs to be made more like the private sector.

Stephen, Lake District,

How many decent children and hard-working families are losing out because of incompetent teachers? The awesome scale of the problem is one of our country's best kept secrets. Why risk running a machine with sub-standard parts? Mr Bartley is right to draw attention to this problem; poor kids.

Des, Edinburgh,

Perhaps failed Teachers should be encouraged to find an alternative career instead of just passing the buck . They could even join the ranks of failed lawyers and join the Labour party ... probably leading to a cabinet position , providing they can say yes often enough .

Benzo, Nr Chelmsford,

I don't believe we have "the best-qualified teachers we have ever had". We have more teachers who hold degrees these days, but today's degrees are not worth what they used to be. As an employer I see far too many appalling applications for jobs. The system and teachers are failing our kids.

Derek, London, UK

I teach in an independent school. Were I considered incompetent, I would be warned and then given help. If I didn't improve, I would be sacked. This is what happens in every organisation I know of. Why should teachers in state schools be treated differently? The mighty teaching unions, perhaps?

Michael, Sherborne,

Could it be that the lunatics are in charge of the asylum? Who is in charge of the classroom - civil servants, education experts, governors, parents or students? Whoever it is, it is not the teachers. Nobody in their right mind should take up a career as a teacher in Britain.

John, Hong Kong, China

Successive governments have tolerated a culture of anti-intellectualism and anti-education, failing to establish a good learning environment as the norm for schools. State benefits have helped create a 'why bother?' attitude. Now they bully teachers in the hope of turning round a broken society.

MikeMSN, Midsomer Norton, UK

Everyone knows, if the management's bad, the workforce will not excel. How can you always blame teachers, when surely the heads have got more to do with how a school runs and functions, they are supposed to be the leaders within school communities!!!

Rita, Mulhouse, France

Government has spent the last decade or two making it virtually impossible for employers to fire staff 'just' because they are incompetent.

It'll be very interesting to see how government really faces up to the problems facing an ordeinary employer... or is this just spin, anyway?

Fred Perkins, london, uk

When I became a teacher at the beginning of the sixties oneof my main reasons was that I found I did not like office work.
It now seems that the office work has become part of teaching.
That plus the poor attitudes and undisciplined behaviour of the pupils means I would not consider teaching now

plato, ely, uk

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

P Robbins, Cornwall,

The talk is as though the teaching profession has an exceptionally large number of "dummies". But does it? Is it any different to say the police, medical, or even media professions? If not then what is being done to remove a similarly large number of their incompetent members?

B Redfern, Krsko, Slovenia

Richard of Bangkok;
Teachers do have a hard time of it, but that does not excuse poor standards of teaching. Most people have been through the school system and we know when we have not been 'taught'. As much as the govt. need to support teachers, teaching does need to clean it's own house.

duncan, Wokingham,

What an utterly dumb idea. I can just see ratemyteacher.com having a "removed" section within five minutes. Hey presto, teacher publicly stigmatised and no more likely to succeed in whatever school (s)he is imposed upon.
Why not replace teachers' administrative workload with on-the-job training?

Tim, Auckland, New Zealand

I know of many incompetent teachers that would not get a job in the normal world. The future of a nation depends on them. Good ones deserve to be rewarded, bad ones need to be fired - preferably "struck-off", as they must be considered malignant. Salaries are ok but should be performance based.

peterj, aberdeen,

It's easy to blame the teachers.

Just what does incompetent actually mean?

Teachers today have no respect, little support and are bogged down by bureaucracy.

richard, bangkok,