PLANS to ease the workload on teachers in Wales were un-veiled by eucation minister Jane Davidson (pictured).

Ms Davidson announced £3 million funding to be handed directly to schools to provide administrative support to teachers.

Schools will be allowed to decide how to spend the money earmarked for next year. Teachers' pay and conditions are still controlled from Westminster and have not been devolved to Wales.

Further measures to help teachers in Wales and England were announced by UK education secretary Estelle Morris yesterday, with Jane Davidson then announcing the extra £3 million package.

Islwyn AM Brian Hancock said: "Teachers have more and more paperwork to do and more and more bureaucracy to comply with so I am sure they will appreciate the extra help.

"It would be interesting to get special needs teachers to coach children in the very early years - you could call them speech and language therapists - because if the problems are not dealt with by the time they are ten or 11 they become more acute."

William Graham, AM for South Wales East, said: "I think this is to be welcomed but one hopes the money will go as said directly to schools to determine their own priorities. This is long called for and I'm glad the minister is listening."

John Griffiths, AM for Newport East, said: "This will allow schools to take on classroom assistants and free up teacher-time. Classroom assistants will be able to deal with the mundane tasks and administration freeing up teacher-time to allow them to concentrate on teaching children."