Marching under the government's favourite slogan of 'No opportunity too great to squander', the Education Bureau has bravely decided that the chance to improve educational prospects by radically reducing class sizes should be abandoned in favour of reducing the number of classes.
The government added insult to injury by claiming there is no evidence that smaller class sizes in secondary schools raise standards, and then resorted to its favourite trick of issuing a bunch of phoney figures purporting to show that costs will double if classes are not axed as school enrolment falls.
Not only is there a wealth of evidence supporting the simple proposition that the more attention given to individual pupils, the more likely they are to succeed, but I happen to have first-hand experience of this, which is burned in my memory.
I attended a London school which was sufficiently large to have eight classes operating in the first four years, with an average class size of around 40 pupils. Those of us who were not that interested in being educated quickly discovered that the simple expedient of sitting at the back of the class and causing minimal disruption meant we could get away with doing more or less nothing.
I realised the extent of this escape from attention when my parents were given a report about a class I never attended, which claimed that I was a quiet and studious pupil.
The hard-pressed teacher, deluged by other pupils, presumably saw my name on the list, noted that I had caused no trouble and sought to reassure my parents by telling them of my diligent attitude.