SIR: I recently read (Your views, April 2) the advice given to Gary Titley MEP and myself from T Walters concerning our fight with the French authorities about their failure to recognise British professional qualifications. I gave Mr Titley plenty of information about the French system, and, being a conscientious Member of the European Parliament, Mr Titley already had many facts at his fingertips.

French teachers (who have passed the CAPES) are indeed civil servants, but there are plenty who are allowed to teach with only a degree for years and years and who are paid peanuts .

CAPES is tough in the sense that it excludes so many. The CAPES does not actually test your ability to teach as you sit the first set of exams without even having had to hold a stick of chalk.

It is a tough test in that you may be a stunning mathematician or biologist etc..., but if you are placed 49th nationally and only 35 maths/biology teachers are needed that year, then you will fail as only those placed first to 35th will pass.

I do not wish to circumnavigate the system, I wish to change it. Having spent five years at university, and having proved my worth via my pupils exam results over six years, I refuse to 'retrain' and jump through French bureaucratic hoops. Hats off to Gary Titley who is upholding our professional status in Europe.

Paula Flanagan

Trent Way, Kearsley

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.