Teachers would love the chance to punch a clock or a have a time and motion study to prove they are working far beyond their paid hours, their union leader said last night.

Bermuda Union of Teachers general secretary Mike Charles hit back at Government?s claim they should not be paid as much as civil servants because they worked far fewer days.

He said: ?We would welcome punching a clock. The Ministry doesn?t want us to punch a clock because they will find out they owe us some money.?

He said the average teacher spends over nine hours at school and still takes work home.

?We have suggested a time and motion study but they don?t want to do that. If they did that we would love it.?

He said teachers would end up getting paid for 300 days a year rather than 200 as at present.

Teachers spend three hours a week on lesson planning at the primary school level but time allotted for preparation work gets used up with marking, said Mr. Charles.

Asked about Mr. Charles? comments, Education Minister Terry Lister said: ?That?s a discussion bigger and broader than where we stand right now.

?There is nothing to stop us, at the end of this round of negotiations, starting a discussion like that.

?That sort of discussion takes quite a while to work through.

?It?s not something we, finding ourselves in the position we are right now, would throw on the table or expect the union to throw on the table.

?When Mike Charles says that you have to ask whether he?s representing the union or just talking off the top of his head.?

Mr. Lister added that civil servants have to get permission from Government to take part-time work but teachers only needed to do this during the ten months of the school year.

?Anything the teachers choose to do workwise in the other two months is totally their choice.

?If we were to convert this over to a 12-month year all of a sudden the employment enjoyed by the teachers in the summer would fall off the table.

?They would be working for us, they couldn?t work for someone else.?

Mr. Charles had questioned Government?s logic in trying to pay teachers pro rata because of term times.

He said: ?If you do that to us, next you could go for the college instructors.?

Mr. Charles questioned whether other jurisdictions adopted a similar approach to teachers.

However, civil service sources have said there will be unhappiness if the teachers get strict pay parity because teachers enjoyed some advantages.

The source said: ?They just got an increase. The feeling is ?stop being greedy?.

?Government workers don?t automatically get pay increases when they get a Masters or higher degree.

?Vacations have to be bid for due to service and they have to use 60 percent.

?They are only allowed to carry over 40 percent over two years.?