Schools to link to universities

Universities will help run state schools under plans to nurture the brightest teenagers, schools minister Lord Adonis said.

He called for every state secondary in the capital to forge "much stronger links" with universities to raise "depressingly" low aspirations among some pupils.

Links could include tutors becoming school governors and universities sponsoring new academies, as well as training headteachers and offering advice to sixth-formers.

Lord Adonis told the Standard: "Every London state secondary school should have a partnership with a university.

There are still too many communities where ambition to go on to higher education is too low and where the knowledge of what's available at university level isn't right or deep enough.

"Bringing schools and universities into a much closer partnership will raise ambition.

"The area where obviously universities have most to add is in instilling greater ambition in the most able students."

Professor Malcolm Gillies, Vice-Chancellor of City University, will lead the drive as the Government's new adviser on school and university links in London.