There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 - and 11,000 higher than 1997.

Headteachers and governing bodies run schools and that won't change.

I was head of the Sixth Form Centre when I left the school.

If bringing up the next generation is important, why aren't they the best qualified, the best paid? Why aren't we as concerned about their career progression as we are about those who work in the education or health services?

In the 21st century when few of us stay in the same job all our lives, I would like to think there was flexibility so teachers could become social workers, or foster carers become teachers.

Before this government came to power, many failing schools were simply allowed to drift on in a pattern of continuing failure. The government is determined to break that pattern and is successfully doing so.

By creating useful job descriptions and making clear what qualifications should be expected, the Department aims to help improve schools' ability to recruit the right people.

What politicians want to create is irreversible change because when you leave office someone changes it back again.

We do recognise the need to move towards the publication of information showing the progress made by pupils from one stage of their education to another.

I want to give producers more financial security.

If we can modernise the workforce, make them better qualified, have this framework of qualifications, then I think they have a very good case for more money.

My Department has already recognised this and has been working specifically on the technical support issue since January and will offer advice to schools during the Autumn term.

Where the private sector, or anyone else, has skills, knowledge and resources that can help to deliver a high quality of education and to raise standards, we should use them.

You have got to attract the brightest and the best, but the brightest and best won't stay unless they see real career options.

My focus and that of all members of the Government responsible for delivering services to the public is to make sure that the public sector can use all the skills it needs to do the job the public wants it to do.

I taught for 17 years in an inner city comprehensive schools.

However, the Government has made it clear that we do not encourage the recruitment of teachers from developing nations where there may be an adverse effect on the economy.

I think film is a very powerful advocate and message carrier.

I am confident that the vast majority of teachers will work with us towards achieving that goal.

This government has always said increasing pay is something for something.

There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 - and 11,000 higher than 1997.

I do recognise that, where recruitment difficulties persist, teachers can be put under great pressure.

There is nothing wrong with becoming more ambitious along the way, but I think what the government has asked the council to do is a perfectly good starting point.

I know there are things I did in education that will never be reversed. I have not done that in film yet because I have only been here for about nine months.

It is a very unusual sector and the one thing I would ask of them is to understand that for most of them one-third of their films are being financed by the taxpayer and that carries huge accountability and responsibility.

The need for improved technical support in schools has expanded as the Government and schools have increased their investment in information and communications technologies.

At different times I taught humanities, social sciences and pre-vocational education.

If you invent the Mini Cooper, pour all your energy and passion into it and it gets made, you should be on a roll. In the film industry you have to start again the next day.

OFSTED has made large cuts in the paperwork which schools are asked to provide and further steps to reduce the bureaucratic burden will be introduced in September.

I said, 'Okay, it's the year 2000, I'm getting a computer and a Palm Pilot.' I know how to check my e-mail, and I've listed some phone numbers on it. Half the time the battery has gone out so I can't use it.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

I mean it's the most objective industry in the world. If your numbers stink, you're out. If your numbers are good, you get more money. It's the most Darwinian, it's beautiful, it's brutal, it works.

You know too well the forces which compose their army to dread their superior numbers.

He's a world-famous name to people who care about his music, but there are many people who have never heard of George Gershwin and those numbers increase.

But that is the only thing that slows me down is the system. No one, two or three was big enough to slow me down, only the system. It was the system that slowed me down to make my numbers fall. Not because I am older.

I think my numbers speak for themselves.

Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.

For a London play, rehearsal time would be four weeks for the entire show. In films, I'd spend six weeks on the big dance numbers to get them perfect before the actual shooting.

We typically hear numbers that there are 34 million households that are in stocks in some form. Well, I say that what's occurred is if you have a job in this country, you're in stocks.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

We have seen Indians in immense numbers, and all those on this coast of the Pacific contrive to make a good subsistence on various seeds, and by fishing.

Now, I feel that if somebody looks through all the numbers through all those years, they will find one for Julius Rosenberg, and it is worth finding if it is such an important issue.

I differ materially from Capt. Lewis, in my account of the numbers, manners, and morals of the Sioux.

What matters to me is that I do what I think is right and I see, I'm a numbers guy, that's my attitude. I know we have a debt tsunami coming, we are bankrupting this country and I'm in a position where I can actually advance ideas to prevent that from happening. That's exactly what I should be doing.

When we first went there we completely lacked confidence. Our manager told us our act was too long, and told us to drop certain numbers and concentrate on the exciting stuff. And he was right.

We can't afford as a nation - not because of money but because of our social fabric - to have large numbers of people who are not working.

President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly.

France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside.