Re: "Teachers' pay looks pretty good," letter, Feb. 7.

I would like to question the assertion that "a teacher's salary and perks look quite excellent."

The letter fails to acknowledge that many beginning teachers do not get full-time work. While a full-time salary of $48,000 may look good to her, she should be aware that the average annual salary for teachers on call is a paltry $11,000, according to research conducted by the B. C. Teachers' Federation.

I am one of the fortunate teachers to have a full-time job; however, many of my teaching colleagues have been on the teacher-on-call list for several years, waiting for jobs that were sadly slashed by the provincial government. Even if they are lucky enough to sign a contract, it is often a small portion of a day which limits their ability to work elsewhere.

An excellent example of this is a Semester 2 English teaching position that was recently posted in my district. The "lucky" teacher who gets that position will have an annualized full-time equivalent of 0.125, which equates to a gross annual salary of $6,000.

How excellent does that look now?

Holly Mair

Sidney