Tory fees plan rocks Clarke

Charles Clarke could be forced to defer a decision on controversial top-up fees for university students until the completion of an independent public inquiry.

The Secretary of State for Education expected to bring in his legislation this autumn. But an unlikely alliance between backbench rebels, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats – and ultimately, the House of Lords – could vote it down.

Labour opponents, believing the Government's policy would be "left in tatters", want ministers to adopt a Treasury plan, shelved when Mr Clarke took over at Education, to ask Lord Dearing to carry out a further review into higher education.

Margaret Hodge, the Higher Education minister, attacked the Tories for announcing their opposition to top-up fees in a policy that didn't "stack up" economically. "The only way the Tories can finance their plans is by cutting the numbers of university places," she said,

Damian Green, the Shadow Education Secretary, however, dismissed suggestions that the Tory plans would lead to the loss of 6,500 lecturers' jobs and claimed the biggest deterrent to students would be an extra £9,000 of debt.

The Government is clearly shaken by the Tory move and the Labour backbench opposition to fees. Mr Clarke, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, made it clear he would consider concessions.

Turning his attention to schools, he will tell teachers this week that primary school classrooms should be fun places where children learn to enjoy being educated, free from fear of bullies.

He wants more schools to bring in outsiders with a special love of their subject to interest the very young in subjects like music, sports, languages, or drama.

Mr Clarke is anxious to counter complaints from teachers' unions that the government has been trying to regiment everything that happens in the classroom. The unions want to scrap the testing of seven-year-olds as a first step to freeing teachers from administrative work.

Mr Clarke will encourage schools to use classroom assistants, despite the unions' objection to classes being supervised by people who are not trained teachers. He will also encourage the use of adults other than teachers who can provide specialist support to make learning more fun.

A survey of primary schools conducted by the Department of Education showed that two-thirds already use adults other than teachers to provide specialist back up. The largest number, by far, are music teachers, but others come in to teach sports, languages, drama or computer technology.

Mr Clarke will encourage schools to bring in children's writers to interest pupils in fiction, or people to run music seminars orhistory classes.

He is also determined to deal with bullying, truancy and other forms of disruptive behaviour in primary schools.

"Children should learn at an early age to attend school and behave when they get there," an education spokesman said. "They should know what is expected of them, whether they are in class, in the playground or in the corridor. If young children know how to behave, then they are less likely to get into serious trouble when they are older."