JACK McCONNELL has raised the controversial prospect of comprehensive schools in Scotland being allowed to select their own pupils.
Announcing a radical reform of the nation’s schooling, to be backed by private cash, the First Minister would not rule out the possibility of his new "schools of ambition" being able to pick pupils they admit.
Scottish Executive sources say it ha
s not yet been decided if that means new schools will be set up or existing ones will be adapted. The role of local authorities in the new system is yet to be decided, but the indications are their grip of secondary schooling will be loosened.
Private cash and business expertise are to be used to back the overhaul which the Executive said will create a new type of academy to act as a beacon of ambition.
But Mr McConnell stressed that, unlike the Prime Minister’s reforms of schooling in England, there will be no private sector running of schools north of the Border or independent management boards that would take them out of the state sector. The new schools will offer flexible approaches to teaching methods, innovative approaches to subjects, and will be able to take advantage of newly relaxed rules about the ages at which pupils can take exams.
The reforms also aim to create more diversity in secondary schooling, with greater choice in every school for what and how young people learn based on individual interests and including more vocational classes.
According to Mr McConnell, Schools Minister Peter Peacock will this autumn "unveil the most comprehensive modernisation programme in Scotland’s secondary schools for a generation".
Mr McConnell praised Scotland’s primary schools for changes in recent years, saying they are "the most inspiring places in this country . . . the modern Scottish primary school is a source of national pride".
But he called on secondary schools to be more ambitious and said: "We won’t tolerate the achievement and motivation from primary ebbing away during a child’s transition to adolescence."
The First Minister signalled the end of the "ordinary" comprehensive and said: "The modern comprehensive is rich and diverse, not uniform nor standard. It is ambitious for itself and each and every child in its care."
But the education spokesman for Scottish local authorities, the Rev Ewan Aitken, warned against the over-involvement of private business in schooling.
He said: "We are happy to work with anyone who wants to invest in education, but no-one can buy education from local authorities."
