The government is well on its way to meeting its key pledges on education and employment, as shown by the Department for Education and Employment's Annual Report , published today.
The report sets out the key achievements in the past year. These include:

* Providing an early education place for every four year old whose parents want one
* Reducing the number of children in classes over 30 by 100,000
* Helping more than 200,000 young people through New Deal
* Investing almost £5.5 billion in modernising schools
* Investing almost £1.5 billion extra in further and higher education over the next two years to provide an extra 800,000 places by 2002
* Publishing proposals for modernising the teaching profession
* Setting up the Skills Task Force
* Introducing the Disability Rights Commission Bill
* Creating 500 specialist schools by 2001