Grammar schools needed to raise standards

More grammar schools and low-cost private schools are needed to raise the "dire" standards of the education system, a report by one of the most respected economic think-tanks says today.

Millions of people cannot read, write or count and millions more can barely do so because of the "socialist" state-directed system and comprehensive education, the Economic Research Council says.

Better off parents have escaped the worst aspects of comprehensive education by paying private fees, buying tuition or moving home to be close to the best schools, says the report. It is families on the lowest incomes that have suffered from the progressive theories and dumbing down of standards.

The Economic Research Council, Britain's oldest economic think-tank, says it is "rotten schooling" and not grammar schools that has harmed social mobility.

Prof Dennis O'Keeffe, the report's author, says leading Tories who claim grammar schools no longer offer a ladder of opportunity for poor, bright children fail to understand the importance of selection.

"Unlike David Cameron's parents who sent him to Eton, certain members of the modern Conservative Party appear not to understand the dramatically effective way competitive education encourages, identifies and rewards talent and consequently increases social mobility," he says.

"Comprehensive schools with soft and easy access for all have not served the community well. They have served only to eradicate upward mobility, and done so, perversely, in the name of eradicating privilege," adds Prof O'Keeffe, the professor of social science at Buckingham University.

Mr Cameron has pledged to preserve the existing 164 grammars but backed David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, when he blamed the schools for entrenching social advantage. In a speech last month that led to a rebellion in the Tory ranks, Mr Willetts said that changes in society since the 1950s meant that the middle classes now monopolised grammar school places.

Prof O'Keeffe wants the law to be changed so that education authorities can choose to re-introduce the 11-plus or provide more academically selective schools.

"Today's comprehensive schools claim to eradicate privilege, but in reality they have only eradicated upward mobility," he says.

An education elite in the Civil Service, universities and teacher training colleges had pushed ideas of "children thinking for themselves and owning the curriculum" as part of "socialist control" of the state system.

To help break down the monopoly system, there should be more cheap, private schools and tax relief on the fees.

Mr Willetts said last night: "One of the reasons for shockingly low social mobility is that it is very hard for someone from a modest background to get into our academically most successful schools. That is why we are proposing real reforms so that there are more good schools with more streaming and setting and tough discipline."