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Your leader ("Please sir, why should anyone want to teach?" THES, October 2) stated that "too few want to be teachers", yet evidence from the post-compulsory sector would appear to contradict this.

Motivated by a range of considerations -including wanting to be a part of the process of achieving the wider social participation to which your leader draws attention - applicants for initial teacher education courses offering preparation for college teaching posts are, in fact, far from scarce.

Despite their recent history of troubled industrial relations and a somewhat worrying readiness on the part of some college managers to opt for casualisation as a human resources strategy, post-16 institutions are obviously presenting at least one group of prospective teachers with a set of challenges and perceived rewards that they find highly attractive.

Our own pre-service programme has increased its intake by 50 per cent over 1997-98. This has been achieved on the strength of a large number of high-calibre, committed applicants, all of whom have great potential to "make the difference" and to change lives, the vital functions that the Kennedy report acknowledged colleges perform so well.

Bryan Cunningham

PGCE post-compulsory course leader, Institute of Education University of London