The idea looked certain to die the death until the Department for Education and Employment hit on the wheeze of developing technology colleges from existing schools. When New Labour came to power there were 233 such schools and the notion had broadened to include languages, sport and the performing arts. From such unpromising beginnings the Blair government takes its policy for transforming secondary education. Engineering, science, and business and enterprise are to be added to the specialisms. Quite why specialist schools should have such appeal for a Labour government is not clear.
Specialist schools can select only a tenth of their intake.
So, incredibly, although they are presumably about developing particular talents, they won't be able to determine whether most of their pupils have these talents in the first place. The government seems to have been persuaded to go down the specialist schools route by reports of their achievements. The Technology Colleges Trust, a survivor from the Thatcher era with its chairman, Sir Cyril Taylor, now a Blair adviser, has become a powerful lobbyist for them. Its studies show that their exam results are better and improving more quickly than other schools. But it is unlikely that the specialist concept can be scaled up to the whole system.