Education - Letter: Too old to teach?

In the article "Where are all the teachers?" (Education, 17 September), the experience of Anne Hubbard and her husband made interesting reading. I graduated from a PGCE course at the age of 41 having previously spent 18 years in industry. I enjoyed the course enormously, received good reports from all who were part of my training and then found out the one thing they don't tell you at college: one of the criteria schools use when selecting candidates for interview is age. Bearing in mind the cost of training teachers, in addition to the government's current advertising campaign, I wonder how many more qualified people there are who would love to join the profession but have been excluded through no fault of their own. By the way, I trained to teach mathematics.

Ian Dovey

West Bridgford, Nottingham