IN your report on the rejection of the teachers' pay offer more emphasis could have been laid on the fact that the 2.7% offer means a reduction in real terms in the salaries of all members of the teaching profession.

Teachers should be made fully aware of the fact that colleagues who have retired received this month a cost-of-living increase, calculated on the basis of the annual rate of inflation, of 3.6% in their pensions.

It requires little mathematical skill for teachers to realise that their offer represents a decrease in the spending power of their salaries for the year 1998-99 of 0.9%. The original offer of the SJNC management side meant a decrease of 1.1%!

So much for education, education, education!

Iain Hall,

6 Lochpark,

Doonfoot,

Ayr.

May 6