Schooling is not like it was in my day-thankfully.

Not that the education I enjoyed at The Grange Comprehensive School in dear old Stourbridge wasn't up to scratch. I received a solid schooling that equipped me for the world - of the late seventies.

Turning out young adults for today's complex world armed with my education would be to send them out armed with broadsword and crossbow when the opposition are equipped with automatic weapons.

Having seen my own daughters through their school years, and helped and encouraged where needed with their studies, I am under no illusions that the pressure on today's schools to cram so much into young minds is incredible.

Which is why I think today's generation of teachers should welcome Education Secretary Michael Gove's suggestion that the school day should be lengthened and the school holidays shortened to enable pupils more time to learn more stuff.

What's more, it would mean teachers have much longer to plant all those ideas and information into the brains of their little charges. A simple solution. After all, we already pay teachers a good wage for their time, why not have them spend a bit more of it in the classroom rather than on holiday?

I'm not daft, of course. And I understand fully why the teaching profession en-masse has dismissed the suggestion as either crackpot or outrageous. There's no way that teachers are going to vote for an end to their wonderful long holidays - almost three times that of the rest of us - no matter how much common sense is involved. The most glorious and honest defence of the current system that I read came from the Master of Wellington College Anthony Seldon ( I know, he understands the pressures on working parents and state schools so well). Writing in a Sunday paper this is what he said about teachers and the long holidays: “Most teachers don’t squander this time, but use it to enrich their minds, travel, read, attend courses and simply relax. They deserve it.” Puleeese!

Its that final line, 'They deserve it,’ that grates the most, as if nurses, bin men, traffic wardens and supermarket workers don't somehow deserve a longer break also. Actually I don't believe many teachers do believe they deserve longer holidays than the rest of us. They know full well that once the salaries of teachers reached levels as good as if not better than comparable roles in the private sector they had no more right to 13 weeks paid holiday than anyone else. I can't believe any of them, unless they are not blessed with the intelligence they should certainly own to be allowed to teach our children, cannot see how their privileged world is an anachronism in today's pressured society. It's just that if no one does anything about it, why should they volunteer to give it up.

Perhaps because by doing so they give parents who pay for their children's education through their taxes and the students themselves the schooling they deserve?

In the past I have voiced my own theory that the time has come for teachers to 'buy back' their’ extra’ holiday by carrying out added tutorials for pupils, run after school clubs and holiday events, all at no extra cost. Mr Gove's theory is a variation on my original idea, but has merit.

Nothing will change of course. We will go on having an education system that was designed to allow children to go home in the summer to help bring in the harvest. Mr Gove may be brave enough to have a go at change on this scale, but his government nor any other will not be. So teachers can rest easy. As can university lecturers, whose holidays make those of teachers look sparce by comparison. Now that would be a challenge.