House-move parents 'are hypocrites'

Middle class parents who move homes to get their children into better state schools are the "real moral hypocrites" of the education system, according to the headmaster who is writing Tony Blair's biography.

Dr Anthony Seldon, headmaster of the fee-paying Brighton College, will tell a conference in London today: "Parents often spend considerable sums and go to remarkable lengths to move homes to shoehorn their children into the best, for which read the most middle class, schools.

"Parents who struggle hard to find the fees to give their children better opportunities at independent schools, while paying taxes for others to use the state sector, merit the moral high ground."

He will propose a new style of "public-private partnership" school, for which wealthier parents would have to pay. Parents who pay fees are more likely to take an active interest in their child's education, he argues.

Under Dr Seldon's plans, 75 per cent of schools would be "partnership schools", run by the private sector but with the state offering subsidies to parents on a means-tested basis to send their children there. A further 20 per cent would be entirely state funded and the remaining 5 per cent would be for the sons and daughters of the rich who were looking for a socially exclusive school for their children.

Dr Seldon, a respected historian who also written a biography of John Major, is scheduled to compete his biography of the Prime Minister later this year.