A dramatic expansion of the Government’s beacon and specialist schools programme was announced yesterday amid warnings that Tony Blair’s secondary education revolution could create a two-tier system. A dramatic expansion of the Government’s beacon and specialist schools programme was announced yesterday amid warnings that Tony Blair’s secondary education revolution could create a two-tier system.
More than 400 of the country’s best-performing primary and secondary schools will be given extra cash to pass on their recipe for success to their neighbours, Estelle Morris, Secretary of State for Education and Skills, said yesterday. She also unveiled plans for 79 more specialist secondary schools.Speaking in the Commons debate on the Queen’s Speech, Ms Morris sought to allay fears that she was splitting the comprehensive system, insisting that “there is something special in this country about every single secondary school.”But she was criticised by Opposition MPs. Theresa May, the shadow education secretary, warned: “I hope your approach will mean a move away from spin and gimmicks, but the first signs are not encouraging. I hope you will be willing to take a leap of faith and trust heads and teachers.”Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, warned of “social segregation”, arguing: “One doesn’t need a specialism to be special.”The £39m-a-year beacon programme represents almost a doubling of the number of schools taking part to around 1,000. Each beacon establishment will be given around an extra £35,000 a year to pay for supply cover while they send their top-quality staff into neighbouring schools to spread good teaching practice.In an attempt to improve performance in the inner cities, ministers have focused on schools in disadvantaged areas with good national curriculum test scores and GCSE and A-level results.

“Many beacon schools are managing to achieve high performance in the face of difficult circumstances,” Ms Morris added.The plans for 79 more specialist secondaries, including 33 new specialist technology colleges, 18 new language colleges, 16 sports colleges and 12 specialising in the arts, will bring the total number to 700. Tony Blair has set a target of establishing 1,500 by 2006.Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, attacked the scheme yesterday, saying: “The Government’s proposal to expand specialist schools is utterly irrelevant to the core problems facing the education service.”A two-tier system, advantaging some schools over others, will simply serve to divide and create disparity of provision for secondary-age pupils.”Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said the spread of specialist and single-faith schools advocated by the Government, coupled with the increasing involvement of the private sector in the running of schools, “amounts to little more than the dismantling of state education by a Labour government”.Defending the scheme, Ms Morris said: “We already have in our school system the beginnings of the diversity agenda. We have specialist schools, we have beacon schools, we have training schools, we have schools which are generously supporting schools in other parts of the education authority We have church schools.”This is not a two-tier system. It is a guarantee to every parent and child that our schools are well funded, that they teach the national curriculum, that they are good at teaching the basics.”Martyn Coles, headteacher of the 1,050-pupil St Paul’s Way Community School in Tower Hamlets, a specialist arts college selected for Ms Morris’s announcement, added: “At first, I didn’t look at specialist status closely because I thought it was a bit ?tist.

No one could argue that now, because we have to spend a third of our extra money on helping other schools.”John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: “I welcome the large increase in the number of specialist schools and hope that the Government will be able to accelerate the programme so that all secondary schools have the opportunity to gain specialist status within this Parliament.”. Mistakes were likely to have been made in the handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis, the Government admitted yesterday as it promised a full investigation into the affair. Mistakes were likely to have been made in the handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis, the Government admitted yesterday as it promised a full investigation into the affair.
But Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pointedly declined to yield to calls for a public inquiry into the crisis.Making a statement on the foot-and-mouth crisis on the first full day’s business of the new Parliament, Mrs Beckett told MPs lessons needed to be learnt from the outbreak, which has resulted in the slaughter of 4.5 million animals. She said: “Although everyone was trying to do their best, it is in the nature of things that some errors are likely to have been made.”What is important is not just to identify what we could and should do better next time, but also to highlight the many things which went well and which we should do again if the same or a similar situation should arise.”She revealed that the cost of compensation during the crisis had reached more than £1.1bn. She warned the outbreak would continue for weeks and that a timescale could not be put on the eradication of the disease.Mrs Beckett said that the average number of new cases each day had fallen to between four and five since May, and announced measures to relax animal movements by allowing them to travel out of infected areas to slaughter and to enter infected areas on welfare grounds.Tim Yeo, the Tory rural affairs spokesman, called for the Prime Minister and other ministers involved in the crisis to be called to account before a full public inquiry. He lambasted Tony Blair for claiming before the election that Britain was “in the home straight” in the fight against the disease.He added: “If prompt and effective action had been taken at the outset, as I suggested in this House, and inquiries into the previous outbreak made clear, far fewer animals would have died, far fewer family businesses would have been destroyed, far less damage to farming and the rural economy would have occurred, and hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money would have been saved.”Colin Breed, the Liberal Democrat agriculture spokesman, asked Mrs Beckett whether the inquiry would be “as full, comprehensive and independent as the BSE inquiry under Lord Phillips …

Or will it be something which is going to be delayed, something much less complete and shoved under the carpet?”. Ministers sparked anger last night after they threw out a recommendation that 21-year-olds should be paid the full adult minimum wage rate. They were accused by unions of insulting young workers by refusing to put their earnings on a par with older staff. Ministers sparked anger last night after they threw out a recommendation that 21-year-olds should be paid the full adult minimum wage rate. They were accused by unions of insulting young workers by refusing to put their earnings on a par with older staff.
The new Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, announced that the rate for 18 to 21-year-olds would be raised from £3.20 to £3.50 an hour from October. It would mean their weekly pay rising by £10.50 for a 35-hour week, an increase of 9 per cent.But she rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that workers should be entitled to the full adult rate – which rises from £3.70 to £4.10 in October – from their 21st, rather than 22nd, birthday.