THE most nerve wracking thing about owning an old car is the MOT. It probably cranks up the same sort of tension as the levels hit when waiting for exam results.

You pay your money and a man then takes your trusty old banger into the bowels of the garage where it is systematically taken apart. I’ve been through this process many times with a variety of cars in my earlier years – and the waiting doesn’t get any easier.

Will it pass? Will it fail? The suspension is a killer. Then comes the phone call.

“Mr Mortimer? Right the tracking needs sorting and the rear brake pad has got about as much stopping power as a soggy paper bag. It’ll cost £180 to fix and then you’ll be legal.”

I’m not sure any of my old cars – and I’ve had a few – passed first time. So there’s always that cynical little brain cell working overtime on conspiracy theories of garages cashing in on the ignorant and helpless at a vulnerable time.

So now the Government is planning to put teachers through the ringer in a similar manner.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls (the jokes about by name and nature are now very close to the surface) last week brought out his long awaited White Paper on education and leaping out is the plan to give all teachers an MOT.

If these proposals go through then as from next September teachers will be given a licence to teach. This will be subject to a review every five years and that licence can be revoked as a result of the assessment.

Mr Balls said: “It may be that we discover there are some teachers who won’t be relicensed.”

The scheme will begin with newly qualified teachers and eventually roll out to cover every teacher in the country. Needless to say the plan has been attacked by the Tories and teachers’ unions.

This is an unnecessary, nasty and a potentially destructive piece of legislation. Along with other proposals in the White Paper it will suck even more time and energy out of the learning environment that schools can ill-afford to lose these days.

After all accountability measures already in place include initial teacher training, induction year and Ofsted inspections.

The extra bureaucracies it will create for school administration and the huge extra pressure it will put on teachers will do nothing more than harm our already seriously struggling education system.

One of the core problems of the ever-changing legislation and goals that have hamstrung our schools over the last two decades is that teachers have been left more and more exposed.

Mr Balls’ cockcrow of:“We’re for the first time setting out in a way no other government has done before, a statutory entitlement for every child and parent” is risible. It’s no surprise therefore that schools are now experiencing more than ever before a great problem in filling teaching posts.

Indeed such is the difficulty, many schools are having to resort to bring in teachers from overseas to fill jobs. That, more than anything, is an indictment of how the teaching profession has been hung out to dry.

And who’s going to go into a teaching job now under this new cudgel? Facing the demanding pressure of an assessment process every five years – which effectively is putting your career on the line – is hardly an inducement.

Indeed, why pick on teachers as if they were some sort of indolent working breed that needs to be subjected to this MOT. What about doctors and dentists? They’re not subjected to five-year MOTs either and yet they are dealing in areas that are just as important as teaching.

I mean what teacher is going to be focussed on their job while waiting for the dreaded phone call from the ‘MOT’ office?

“Mrs Johnson? You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”