Ahead of tomorrow's (October 8th) debate on the Future of London Schools, the Evening Standard has called on people not to lose sight of the fact that education remains a very personal profession.

Many of the recent ideas to revamp the school and exam system in England and Wales have focused on the introduction of technology, with boards saying that online exams will be the norm within the next decade. However, the Standard has pointed out that it is the people in teaching jobs in London who inspire the pupils and not flashy new tablets and software.

Lucy Tobin writes that while she was at school, she was lucky enough to have access to top-of-the-range computers, brand-new Bunsen burners and up-to-date textbooks, but none of those things are fundamental to the lessons that she now remembers.

"What stands out is the time my English teacher dropped to his knees in the middle of an Othello passage and we all suddenly got that Shakespeare wasn't actually a dull old dude but a teller of tales for our time too. Mostly because of his teaching, I ended up studying English at uni," she explains.

In Los Angeles, educational authorities recently forked out $1 billion (£620 million) on iPads for pupils, leaving many people asking how many extra teachers they could hire for the same amount of money.

She concludes that London should not fall into the same trap of outsourcing teaching to technology and highlights that a school's greatest asset should be its teachers.

London's school system has improved remarkably over the past ten years and now the children's results are among the best in the country, yet challenges remain.

Technology, the squeeze on admission places and the rise of the free school should all be debated, but teachers and the work they do still needs to be the crux of the matter.