THE teaching profession is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being opposed to any initiative inflicted on it by government.

As a consequence, when there is genuine cause for complaint, grievances are often overlooked.

The criticism by teachers and head teachers of school league tables is entirely justified.

And we plead with children, parents and teachers to treat with caution the tables published today and put them in their true context.

Leagues tables are an unavoidable part of modern government. By and large they serve a useful purpose in seeking out best practice and encouraging improvement.

But they can only do so when like is compared with like. School league tables do not compare like with like.

They compare fee-paying schools with state schools; schools in affluent suburban areas with schools in deprived run-down areas; children from prosperous backgrounds with children from poor backgrounds.

In their present form, the tables tell us little more than the blindingly obvious. That schools given extra resources and schools which do not have children from deprived communities have a head start on other schools and are bound to have better examination results.

It is wholly unjust that the performance of schools should be judged only on examination results. There ought to be a mechanism which plots the improvement children make throughout their time at school. That would accurately reflect the standard of teaching and the progress of pupils.

School league tables are discouraging the principle of equality of opportunity in education, so fervently promoted by this Government.

The tables give some schools a degree of false satisfaction about their performance, and give others an unfair assessment of the quality of their teachers and the hard work of their pupils.

Fallen values

THE number of people unemployed last month went up by 3,500. This is shocking because it is the first rise since November 1998. For those of us who are fortunately unaffected, this can be seen as good news.

Firstly, it shocks everyone into remembering that unemployment, having fallen for 24 consecutive months, is not consigned to the history books. It is a gentle reminder to ministers that they cannot afford to take their eyes off the ball.

Secondly, it shocks almost everyone because there is widespread scepticism about unemployment figures. People believe that if the Government isn't actually fiddling them, it is certainly massaging them in the right direction.

However, this was supposed to be the month when the Government could trumpet that unemployment had fallen below the one million mark for the first time in decades and that it proved it was on course to achieve its extravagant goal of full employment.

Yet the figures have risen. Government celebrations are scuppered. Perhaps now we should believe just a little bit more in some of the other encouraging figures from the Office for National Statistics rather than cynically dismissing the news that the country's economy is doing OK as government propaganda