Education officials have just returned from trips to Jamaica and England as they seek to sign up some 25 new teachers.

Around 20 teachers were interviewed in England last week and a similar number were looked at in Jamaica the week before for the three-year contracts.

Announcements on final numbers are likely at the end of the month for the posts which are thought to carry salaries of around $46,000 while more senior staff can earn $54,000.

But Education Permanent Secretary Michelle Khaldun said: "We might still have to look in another area.'' Bermuda Union of Teachers president Michael Charles: "We don't have enough Bermudians to fill the positions we have at the moment.'' He said few graduates could be bothered with putting up with the stresses of teaching and having to juggle the demands of ill-disciplined children and a demanding Education Ministry.

He said: "Teachers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Why teach when you can sit down in front of a computer and not have the problems? "They can make $10,000 to $12,000 more elsewhere.'' Mr. Charles said teachers were tied to their jobs during term times and spent holidays at workshops or earning much-needed extra cash as camp tutors.

He said discipline was becoming a problem and teachers were seeing signs of drug taking amongst students.

He said: "Colleagues in high schools say they see children showing the effects of having done something at lunchtime. Their behaviour becomes difficult.'' The influx of foreign recruits would have to adjust to Bermudian life, noted Mr. Charles.

He said: "People from the Caribbean experience a culture shock when they come here because education was taken more seriously by parents and children at home.

"Caribbean people see education as a way forward. My parents never finished primary school but they made sure I went through primary and secondary school.

"Students here don't see themselves as being poor. They can get anything they want. They don't see education as a means of moving forward. When I first came here children could leave school and work in construction or in the hotels and make more money than the teachers.''