There were scenes of anger and disappointment on the streets outside WA’s Parliament House this week, as hundreds of education support staff protested cuts of up to 500 jobs.

Education assistants, cleaners, groundskeepers and other school workers are furious at the cuts and were keen to send a strong message to WA Education Minister Peter Collier.

“Already there are too many students getting left behind. They need quality support staff in our schools so that all the students can get a fair go,” said Ben, a Rockingham education assistant, “with respect to Mr Collier, I think you've lost touch with what it's like to work in a school.”

The Education Minister did front the crowd to explain the Government’s decision; he was met by a wave of heckling, saying: “First of all, that we're actually injecting more money into the education system... with natural attrition, virtually every one of those education assistants will get a job next year - it would be highly unlikely that they didn't.”

The Western Australian Government is adamant it will not reverse the decision.

A State School Teachers Union spokesperson said: “We are not going to allow that to happen to our young children and we're certainly not going to impede our own professional integrity by enabling that to happen... we will not be complicit in this gutting of public education.”