Schools and colleges to get £10bn bonus

Education will gain the most from the Chancellor's comprehensive spending review today, with at least £10bn expected to go to schools, colleges and universities.

Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, will unveil details of the Government's plans for reforms tomorrow. They are being billed as the biggest shake-up of state secondary schools since the introduction of comprehensive education in the 1960s.

A sign of the Government's determination to make education its top priority came in an article published yesterday by Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, who admitted it had to take precedence.

Ms Morris will reveal plans for a severe increase in the number of specialist secondary schools as one of the main elements of the package. She will forecast that the majority of the country's 3,500 state secondary schools will be specialising by the end of the decade. At present, just under 1,000 have specialist status.

All schools will be eligible to apply for specialist status as a result of the reforms. Only those on the hit-list of failing schools held by Ofsted, the Government's education standards watchdog, or who are unable to draw up effective plans to improve standards, will be refused.

Ministers believe the act of drawing up an action plan to improve standards and obtain specialist status has been the lynchpin for raising standards at secondary schools. Schools can specialise in a range of subjects including languages, technology, sport, art, business and engineering. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, is expected to announce an expansion in two new specialist areas, business and engineering.

Specialist schools have to match government funding by raising £50,000 from private sponsorship, although the City Technology Colleges Trust, an umbrella charity representing specialist schools, holds commercial sponsorship money to help schools in deprived areas, which would find it harder to raise the cash.

Failing schools would face closure under the reforms, and city academies could open on their sites or serve their area. According to Ofsted, 50 of the country's worst performing schools have closed during the past two years.

Ms Morris will announce more cash to help schools in danger of closing, with 300 of the top performing specialist schools being awarded "advanced status" and receiving extra money to allow them to second teachers to poorly performing neighbouring schools.

The Chancellor will also announce extra direct funding for headteachers, which will amount to about £50,000. At present a typical secondary school receives more than £100,000 of funding from Whitehall, to spend as it wants.

Tony Blair is heralding the package as the Government's determination to replace the "old one-size-fits-all comprehensive with secondary schools that can develop the talents of each pupil".