Teachers Down, Teaching Assistants Up

According to the BBC the number of qualified nursery and primary school teachers fell by 3,160 from 2002 to 2005.  However there were 26,150 more teaching assistants. Critics of the government's workforce reforms claimed they were being used to replace teachers.

The government and its supporters said this was nonsense, there were simply fewer school-age children.  General secretary of the NUT agreed there were fewer children - but that presented an opportunity to cut class sizes.