Education Minister Randy Horton is confident that a threatened teachers' strike will not take place on Thursday.

He revealed yesterday that talks with the Bermuda Union of Teachers are slated for Monday in a bid to resolve the crisis.

Asked if he is hopeful of success, he said: "There will be some frank discussion of the issue that is at hand, I certainly believe that there will be no action."

The 900-strong union says it will walk out if staff shortages are not addressed, claiming the problem is so severe that classes have been going unsupervised.

According to General Secretary Mike Charles, the situation was compounded by measures taken by Government last September to remove a number of substitute teachers from the public school system, which had an unacceptable knock-on effect on full-time teachers who are being asked to cover other classes on a daily basis.

An arbitration hearing on March 18 resulted in a ruling that the changes to the substitute teacher programme did not breach the Ministry's agreement with the union.

The outcome is disputed by the BUT, which says it was unable to give key evidence, and wants a fresh hearing.

Mr. Horton released information in defence of the axing of the substitute teacher scheme.

"In our estimation, the assigned substitute programme did not live up to the purpose for which it was initially designed which was to reduce Ministry expenditure on substitute teachers.

"By definition, an assigned substitute teacher is a substitute teacher who is assigned to a school on full time basis to provide instruction to students when the regular teacher is absent.

"With effect from 1st September 2007, the Ministry decided to discontinue the programme.

"The reason being is that in 2006/7, $3.24 million was spent on substitutes. An additional $1.2 million was spent on assigned substitutes during that same period.

"From April 2007 until February 2008, $2.47 million has been spent on substitutes.

"The discontinuance of the substitute programme has relieved the taxpayer of an unnecessary financial burden of paying assigned substitute teachers for approximately 180 days of work in the classroom per year even if an assigned substitute teacher only worked for 50 days" he said.

"Other than being informed of a shortage of teachers by the BUT, the Ministry, after receiving no such confirmation of any teacher shortages by the Administrators, is unaware of any teaching shortages. In fact, we are blessed to have a teacher/student ratio of 1:11 in our system."

He went on to comment: "Our teacher/student ratio here in our public school system should be one that we should be proud of in comparison to other parts of the world. For example, in the United States, student/teacher ratios are noted as showing 15:1.

"In Canada, in some instances, it is as low as 20:1 and as high as 30:1. In Trinidad and Tobago, the figures reflect 19:1. In Barbados, student/teacher ratios are equivalent to 16:1. In the UK, research shows student/teacher ratios are equivalent to 18:1.

"I would like to assure the public that the Ministry of Education is committed to meeting the needs of our students and we will do all that we can to resolve this matter."