The government has unveiled its five-year plan for education, with a promise to increase freedom for individual schools.

Education secretary Charles Clarke told MPs on Thursday that all secondary schools will become specialists in one subject area, while those that already are will be allowed to add another area of expertise.

The blueprint continues the government's key theme of choice for users of public services and promises a "step change" in the secondary system.

An expansion of city academies was also announced, as ministers bid to provide a range of high quality options for pupils.

"Driving our reforms will be a new system of independent schools," Clarke told the Commons.

And the role of local education authorities (LEAs) was downgraded to that of a courier of cash to schools, which will now receive guaranteed three-year budgets.

While the government insists that LEAs will still have a key role to play as a "champion" for standards and choice, the Department for Education and Skills wants the increasing schools budget to go directly to headteachers.

Funds will be "guaranteed by national government and delivered by local authorities" the Cabinet minister said.

The reforms to the structure of state secondary schools, which the prime minister has described as "transformational", come alongside record investment in education and forthcoming reviews of the curriculum, exams and vocational training.

Clarke said Labour's third term reforms would end traditional divides in education by ruling out selection by ability and subsidies to the private sector.

"For many years a quality education was the prerogative of the few," he said. "It must now become the entitlement of all."

He also promised more investment in the teaching profession and greater curriculum choices for pupils, including those of primary school age.

And the document made clear ministers' determination that all schools should have compulsory uniforms to "help to define the ethos of a school and the standards expected".

Reaction

The Conservatives said Clarke was wrong to promise it would not return to selection while allowing specialist schools to pick five per cent of pupils by "aptitude".

"You want to be able to tell the middle classes that selection will come back while telling your own backbenchers that selection will be kept out," education spokesman Tim Collins told him.

He also accused the government of stealing Tory ideas on freedom for schools without offering real choice to parents.

"Much of today's announcement is a tribute to the power of the photocopier - the product not so much of Blair or Clarke, but of Xerox," he claimed.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Phil Willis said the proposals were an "election plan, designed to mask seven years of Labour failure".

"Every child needs the guarantee of a quality education," he said.

"First class teachers, a personalised curriculum, smaller classes, fewer tests and good facilities are all basics of a good education, which have to be fulfilled before pupils and parents will think about choice.

"Labour's plan does not address the very real problem of rural areas where parents have no choice and ignores the needs of children with special educational needs.

"The aim of this plan is not to provide quality education for pupils but to mask seven years of Labour failure."