Teachers fear new plan will segregate pupils

London: The poorest pupils will be segregated from their wealthier peers under Labour and Tory plans for scores of 1950s-style vocational schools to train the next generation of plumbers and engineers, teachers warned yesterday.

Both parties want to recreate technical schools, which vanished in the 1950s when their popularity dwindled, offering pupils aged 14 to 19 training and apprenticeships to become skilled tradespeople.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) passed a motion this week at its annual conference in Liverpool expressing "deep concern" that the most disadvantaged young people would be coerced into technical schools, triggering another class divide in the education system. Poor pupils and those who spoke little English or had special needs would be steered into such schools because they typically performed less well in exams and lowered state schools' league table rankings.

Teachers said pupils would be given an "empty promise" that once trained in a trade they would be able to secure a job. They added that the schools would widen the divide between academic and vocational qualifications.

John Bangs, the union's assistant secretary, said pupils were not ready to decide whether to take a vocational or academic route at 14. "This is selection by direction and selection by assumption," he said.