Oh my God! This is truly awful. How on earth do the poor darlings cope with having 30+ children in a class? And only one assistant...things have really hit rock bottom when you have only one assistant. I well remember all my classes were 40+, sometimes 45, right through school. And only ever one teacher (mind you, they always had recourse to a big stick!). We all learned to read and write and do fractions, decimals and algebra in spite of those 'hardships'. My formal education finished at 15, no school certificate, no GCE's, no CSE's but I'm still in work and have not had a day's unemployment in 38 years. Current salary is above 6-figures. Will any of todays school leavers match that, I wonder?