§ Mr. SymsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what progress the Government have made against their target of(a) placing 20,000 classroom assistants in schools by 2001–02 and (b) placing 2,000 more classroom assistants in schools by April 1999. [74737]
§ Ms Estelle MorrisAs part of the National Literacy Strategy, we have allocated £22 million to the Additional Literacy Support programme in 1999–2000. This will fund the deployment of about 2,000 full-time (or equivalent) classroom assistants. This is the first step in meeting our overall figure of an additional 20,000 full-time posts (or equivalent) by 2002. Further funding will be made available to create these additional posts in the years 2000–2001 and 2001–2002