Interviews started for the post on Tuesday

On the day the council began interviews for the �100,000-a-year post, heads from schools in the west of the county wrote to chief executive Mark James.

They said to do the job properly the post needed someone who was bi-lingual.

Current director Alun Davies rejected this and said management and leadership skills were more important.

It is an essential skill for the director to be able to communicate with head teachers, governors, staff, parents and pupils in the language in which they feel most confident Meirion Owen, head teacher

A number of head teachers in the Myrddin, Taf and Emlyn areas of Carmarthenshire met on Monday night and voted unanimously to call for a Welsh-speaker.

Meirion Owen, the head of Myrddin County Primary School in Carmarthen, said: "We feel it's essential that the director of education should be fluent in Welsh and English and understands the social, cultural and linguistic nature of Carmarthenshire.

"It is an essential skill for the director to be able to communicate with head teachers, governors, staff, parents and pupils in the language in which they feel most confident.

"This cannot be deputised to a deputy in the department."

The head teachers' comments follow calls from the Welsh Language Board for the council to make Welsh an 'essential' requirement of the job.

But Mr Davies, a Welsh-speaker who has held the post for three years, said other skills were more important.

"The main requirements of the post are leadership and management skills," he said.

"The requirements and demands of all posts in local government change over time.

"I have recommended to the council my vision for the way forward into the 21st Century for the education service.