Teachers face axe by 2010

The government announced today that in its ongoing bid to make education more inclusive there will be an immediate reduction in the number of teachers employed and a corresponding rise in cheaper classroom assistants.

Speaking at the Estelle Morris Memorial Best A-level Grading Joke Awards Ceremony, new education supremo Charles Clarke was quite clear: "In this day and age there is a requirement for a universal ISO 90001 standard of dumbing down. There is no need for fully trained teachers any more. Indeed there is no need for any teachers at all. Quite simply the money we can save replacing them with under-employed stay-at-home mums will be better used putting the smile back on the face of Bob Crow."

The National Union of Teachers has already stated its unalterable opposition to the proposals. "We completely oppose any government proposal that concerns education," said Crow. "Then, once we've studied the proposals in detail, we'll tell you why. If in ten years' time you then try to change it we'll come out on strike."

Speaking for the Classroom Assistants Association, Trish Montessori said: "We resent being told that we're under-qualified and stupid. Many mothers have a vast amount of experience that they can bring to educating children. Teachers don't know how to treat kids and get the best out of the them — they're too prejudiced by the time spent teaching them."

However, one civil servant confidently predicted that the policy of replacing teachers with assistants would never happen. "Within the next 10 years, we plan to designate all assistants 'teachers' thereby eliminating the problem immediately," he told us. "The only problem then will be finding people to be called 'assistants'."

Clarke strongly refuted claims that the idea was simply to save on money. "Perish the idea," he burbled, "it's more a case of us providing an appropriate level of teaching to ordinary children whose parents can't be bothered to spend the money on educating them privately."