DARTMOOR Prison was the scene of a picket line on Tuesday.

Some prison teachers are angered at the fact that they have been left out of the much publicised Teachers' Pay Initiative. They are also annoyed by what they see as the Department of Education and Employment's neglect to fund even a cost of living pay rise for them this year — they decided to take action by joining the nationwide strike by NATFHE, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education.

Karen Pollard, prison education representative at the prison, said: 'Over recent years prison education has been through privatisation and contracting out of services, cuts in resources and staff, lowering of pay rates and narrowing of the prison education curriculum.

An experienced lecturer gets £19,000 pa as opposed to the equivalent person in a school who gets £26,000.

'Are we fooling ourselves by believing that what we do as professionals is so unwanted by society in general that we are negligible and unnoticeable?'

Karen Pollard added that the spiral of negativity was taking its toll on society, as without proper education to bring their skills in line with what is needed by employers, prisoners are left with very few options by which to lead law-abiding lives once released.

'We are consistently informed that we, and those we teach, are but a small cog that no-one will pay attention to or even care about,' she added.