The government will today unveil its five-year plan for education, with a promise to increase freedom for individual schools.

Education secretary Charles Clarke will tell MPs that the government will continue to increase choice for parents.

A massive expansion of specialist schools and city academies will be detailed, as ministers bid to provide a range of high quality options for pupils.

Tony Blair used a keynote speech on education yesterday to set out the principles of the government's reforms and distinguish Labour's ideas from the Tories'.

The prime minister offered "freedom for all schools, but not a free-for-all".

"As long as I am prime minister, there will be no return to a system based on selection of the few and rejection of the many, no use of public money to encourage parents to opt out and to subsidise fees in the private sector," he added.