Talks to avert a teachers' strike on Thursday offered a glimmer of hope yesterday, according to a union leader.

The Bermuda Union of Teachers met with officials from the Ministry of Education in a bid to resolve a row over staffing levels. The 900-strong union says the problem is so bad that classes have been going unsupervised.

General Secretary Mike Charles, has in the past, criticised the Ministry for being slow to address the situation, which he said was compounded by measures taken by Government last September to remove a number of substitute teachers from the public school system.

Government defended that move last week as a necessary cost-cutting measure, that did not have a damaging impact on the staff-student ratio.

Speaking after yesterday's talks, Mr. Charles said: "We are no further than we were, however, they did put a proposal to us and we have made some suggestions and some counter-proposals.

"We've asked for some changes to be made to that proposal and await some word back from them."

He declined to go into further detail on the complex negotiations, but commented: "There's always hope.

"As trade unionists we always feel that once you are talking, something will happen... so I guess today was maybe a step in the right direction, we hope."

However, Mr. Charles took issue with information issued by Minister for Education Randy Horton on Friday, which said Bermuda should be proud of having a student-teacher ratio of 11-1 in its public schools. He said this was a rare situation, and questioned how the number was arrived at.

"It demonstrates once again that the Minister is really out of touch with what's happening in our classrooms," he claimed. The Ministry declined to comment on the talks.