It is possible that your correspondent Mr McMillan of Durrington, writing in The Argus on March 21, rather overstated his case against “unqualified” teachers in schools through his analogy with hypothetically unqualified surgeons in hospitals.

A teacher may be very well qualified in their subject even without attending a training course. Examples might be former instructors in the Armed Forces.

There are, and always have been, effective “untrained” teachers in the private sector.

Actors, for example, often make excellent drama teachers because they are more credible than teachers with just the initial training.

Surgeons, like most professionals, are learning on the job and Mr McMillan may, like any of us, have an operation performed on him by a surgeon who is doing such an operation for the first time. All of them had to at one point or another.

Andy Steer, Windlesham Road, Brighton