A Conservative government would allow both successful and failing primary schools in England to be run on similar lines to city academies, Reuters quoted the party's education spokesman as saying today. Failing schools would be taken over by organisations with proven track records in education, Conservative education spokesman Michael Gove said. The proposal was especially targeted at children from disadvantaged backgrounds and would help English youngsters catch up with their international peers, he said. "I am particularly concerned that over the last few years the gap in educational performance between children from wealthier backgrounds and children from poorer backgrounds has actually grown," he told BBC television." City academies, designed to raise achievement levels in failing secondary schools, were the brainchild of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. They did not include primary schools, and Gove said the programme had stalled under Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "So the academies programme, which is explicitly designed to drive up educational performance in poorer areas and to help children from disadvantaged circumstances, we believe that that programme should now apply in primary schools," Gove said. Under the same academy framework, successful primary schools would be given the freedom to run their own budgets and curriculum.
