A FARNHAM headteacher has this week spoken out about low salaries and the problems of recruiting and retaining young teachers in the area, commenting as the National Union of Teachers held their first national strike in 20 years yesterday on Thursday. The NUT in Surrey rallied its members for action this week, questioning what they see as "continued erosion" of their pay. As hundreds of school children across the country were given an unscheduled day off school, Chris Gardiner, headteacher of the Abbey School, Farnham, spoke to The Herald about the difficulties in attracting people to jobs in this "very expensive" part of the country. Teachers from The Abbey School took their fight to Westminster, choosing to join their colleagues in London for a march through the city ending at Central Hall. "Like many schools we have some NUT members and some of our teachers chose to take industrial action," he explained. "In Farnham it's very difficult to recruit teachers and to keep them as it's very expensive to live here. We recently had a candidate for a job with all the right skills and attributes to work at this school who declined to come for an interview because of the salary." In Farnham, the Abbey School saw the whole of year groups eight and nine out of the classroom on the day due to the NUT industrial action. Members of the union voted 3:1 in favour of Thursday's strike after a below inflation pay rise of 2.45 per cent, against the current 4.1 per cent rate of inflation. "In industry you have the choice of passing the cost onto the customer but you can't do that in education, we are all tax payers." Mr Gardiner added that although two year groups were unable to function on Thursday, the school had done all it could to warn parents. "Parents were made aware of this before the April two-week holiday to give them plenty of time to put things in place. As a country we are now in difficult times and teachers, along with health workers. face problems as their salaries are funded by taxation and we all have our own view on that." The NUT has claimed that the consequences of real-term pay cuts are familiar and were a feature of the boom and bust years before 1997. Colin Caswell, NUT division secretary for Surrey said that during that period schools suffered from recruitment and retention problems, with teacher shortages and low morale. "The situation of teacher supply is deteriorating," he said. "Recent data from the Graduate Teacher Training Registry shows a significant fall in the number of applicants to postgraduate teacher training courses compared to the same time last year." He went on to say that children in Surrey "deserve the best" and young teachers need to be treated fairly. "Paying them at levels which are not competitive with those of other graduate professions and making them unable to take even their first step on the housing ladder will damage recruitment." He echoed comments made by Mr Gardiner saying that recruitment and retention of young teachers in Surrey is difficult, claiming that the price of the most basic flat is 10 times their starting salary. "We regret that young people have to face one day of disruption but we feel that there is no alternative. For us in the NUT, strike action is the very last resort. When teachers are paid properly they feel secure, morale is high and teaching is able to compete with other career paths to recruit the best graduates. "We call on the Government to think again and ensure that salaries at least keep pay in line with inflation and there is a recognition of the continuing workload pressures on teachers." South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt urged the Government to do more to support teachers in the area but sympathised with pupils who missed out on "crucial lessons" as a result of the strike. "It is deeply regrettable that so many children will have their education disrupted by this strike, especially as the pay deal was recommended by an independent panel and accepted by the other teaching unions," he said. "Many children have important exams coming up soon and can't afford to miss crucial lessons, and many parents will have to miss work to look after them. "Teachers in South West Surrey do a fantastic job. Rather than getting into pay disputes, I wish the Government would do more to support them in the classroom, such as taking proper action to tackle disruption."