Secondary schools in England are to get help raising the sponsorship they need to apply for specialist status.

If your local school is a specialist school, it is more likely to be a good school

Education secretary, Charles Clarke

They will be able to bid for money from a new Partnership fund for 2003-04, made up of �1m of private sector funding and �2m from the government.

When specialist schools were first set up they had to find backing of �100,000 to trigger matched funding from the government, plus up to �123 extra per pupil per year for four years.

That was soon cut to �50,000 - but many schools still say it is a struggle to find the money.

No limits

Along with the financial help, the government has removed the cap on its funding of the specialist schools programme.

It hopes this will make a reality of the prime minister's desire to see all schools becoming specialists in subjects such as languages, technology or business and enterprise.

Hitherto, the target had been for there to be 2,000 by 2006.

There are none elsewhere in the UK.

The assistance fund available from October next year will be administered by the Technology Colleges Trust, which manages the specialist schools programme for the Department for Education.

It says the fund is designed specifically to help schools which have made "real efforts" to raise sponsorship but have still had difficulty meeting the �50,000 requirement.

Efforts

"A significant number of schools will benefit, but the amount they receive will depend on how much sponsorship they have already raised," the trust said.

"The department is developing criteria for the allocation of these funds.

"These will be based around evidence that the school has made a real effort to raise sponsorship and that, although they have not been able to get �50,000 private sector funding, the school has created other valuable links with businesses."

On Tuesday, Tony Blair said specialist schools were the best way of ensuring "social justice" for children from deprived communities.

On Wednesday, officials from the schools inspectorate, Ofsted, said there was no evidence that the "diversity" Mr Blair wants in secondary schooling produced better results than the comprehensive system.

Head teachers pleased

But the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, told MPs as he announced the expansion: "If your local school is a specialist school, it is more likely to be a good school, one which not only achieves more highly, but which offers greater choice to pupils within a broad and balanced curriculum.

"This is why specialist schools lie at the heart of our drive to raise standards and offer more choice in secondary schools."

The Secondary Heads Association said on Thursday that the emphasis on labelling secondary schools and according higher status to some "creates an unnecessary and unwelcome hierarchy" - reinforced by different funding.

Following Mr Clarke's announcement the association's general secretary, John Dunford, said it answered the complaint that the government was creating a two-tier system.

But he added: "A category of specialist community schools should be created in order to enable rural schools to put in a bid that matches their aspiration to serve their community - where there is no realistic choice of school for pupils - across the whole range of the curriculum."