Many schools are now running 4 day weeks as they have too few teachers for their pupils, others have class sizes of over 30 in an attempt to soldier on.

This is Blairs idea of opening up higher education is it? Killing of any chance children have by stifling them in the high school?

The number of people starting one-year secondary training courses to become mathematics teachers fell in year 2000 by 4% from last September.

The numbers of recruits to become physics teachers is down 13% and English by 1.8%. Overall, there was ONLY a 3.8% increase in numbers beginning courses, despite government boasts earlier in the year that new training salaries on offer had boosted applications by 50%.