The relationship between a child and teacher is not an equal one. To portray it as such risks critically undermining the latter's authority. Yet, despite its doubtful merits, many headteachers are allowing students, as part of a growing move to give pupils a greater say in how their schools are run, to undertake such a role in the recruitment of staff.

This concept, known as "student voice", is born from a liberal utopian vision that sees pupils and teachers gathering at school so they can enjoy a voyage of educational discovery together.

However, it ignores the sad reality that a successful lesson, for too many staff in too many schools, is one where order is maintained long enough to allow some semblance of learning to take place.

The student voice idea has, thus far, spread through schools in a piecemeal fashion depending on the enthusiasm of individual headteachers, and in the face of understandable scepticism from many classroom teachers, who feel that it further limits their ability to maintain discipline and command the attention of their pupils.

A London school has taken this new fad further than most by inviting pupils to tell teachers how they could improve their teaching.

It has called for feedback to be given on lessons in a process labelled "Making Learning Better". Such an approach has a seductive logic to it.

In our consumer-driven society, pupils are the customers for education, and schools need to know which product appeals, and which does not. The customer, after all, is always right.

In the hands of responsible and mature pupils in well-ordered schools, there is, arguably, potential for students to help teachers understand which methods are the most beneficial and innovative.

Indeed, any teacher worth the title will always modify their style to suit different children. But pity the poor teacher standing in a classroom in a difficult school trying to maintain order knowing that unruly pupils are about to sit in judgment on their ability to teach.

This is why the suggestion from the Commons Education and Skills Committee of MPs that headteachers should be legally obliged to set up school councils, should be treated with great caution.

School councils, in themselves, are hardly a threat to the smooth running of schools. Furthermore, most headteachers will already consult with the student body in some form on matters where they can usefully offer an opinion, including, for example, the organisation of events for pupils and the provision of social areas.

But the invitation to comment on school affairs remains the gift of the headteacher, who can offer or withdraw it as they see fit. To give school councils a legal status would establish a right for pupils to be consulted.

Yet Schools Minister Andrew Adonis – a Labour life peer who is not accountable to MPs in the Commons – has gone further and suggested that pupils should be represented on governing bodies.

The corrosive affect on teaching morale as a consequence of pupils being given the illusion of parity with teachers can be seen in the way that Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, has already embraced the student voice vision.

In addition to the standard report written for staff and parents after every inspection, a letter is now composed for students to tell them about the findings.

One such letter to pupils at a Yorkshire school said: "While you benefit from some good lessons, there aren't enough of them and, indeed, too many of your lessons are unsatisfactory. Often, in these lessons, behaviour deteriorates and everyone finds it difficult to learn."

Leaving aside the implicit acceptance that pupils will misbehave when they find a lesson less than inspiring, it is hard to see how telling teenagers that they might be right when they think staff are useless will help them, or their teachers.

If a teacher were to tell his students that a colleague of some years standing was inept, it would be considered highly unprofessional behaviour.

Yet, when inspectors make a judgement on teaching standards based on two days observation, it is considered acceptable for them to pass on that view.

The result of this innovation has been to demoralise teachers who feel the letters merely give disruptive students a licence to misbehave. Faced with any attempt to impose discipline, a pupil can wave the letter in their face and say "Why should I listen to you, sir? You're rubbish. The inspectors said so." The days of children being seen and not heard are, thankfully, behind us, and everything should be done to give young people a voice in the appropriate circumstances.

But teachers are faced with a generation of savvy, self-confident children who are quick to challenge authority and acutely aware of their rights.

Authority, based on age and experience, is one of the few tools left available to teachers trying to encourage children to learn.

Many young people think they are always in the right. The state should not actively encourage them in this belief.