Government draws up 'hit-list' of 170 schools to become city academies

Sir Cyril Taylor, on his first day in the new role, said: "These schools have 150,000 children receiving a very low standard of secondary education. Many drop out before they're 16. They don't have the skills to get jobs. Many will spend their lives on welfare or - worse - get into crime."

The list is made up of secondary schools that have failed inspections by Ofsted, the education standards watchdog, and those where inspectors have identified serious weaknesses either in teaching standards, exam performance or attendance.

Most are in inner-city areas but Sir Cyril said some areas of rural poverty - such as Lincolnshire - had also been identified for the academies programme.

He said ministers were sensitive to criticism that the academies can be hijacked by the middle classes exploiting admissions procedures, and planned new legislation to give them a more comprehensive intake. His comments indicate that the academies programme is far further advanced that many in the education world believed.

Under Tony Blair's programme - to be the centrepiece of a government White Paper next month, 200 privately sponsored academies will be set up by 2010.

The academies will receive, on average, £25m of government cash aid for new buildings in exchange for the sponsors putting in £2m of their own cash. Sir Cyril said he already had enough sponsors pledging £2m each to fund 200 academies, but, at present, many of the sponsors were London-based and he was seeking more regional companies or entrepreneurs to come forward.

Those already backing the programme include private entrepreneurs and companies, independent schools such as Dulwich College and Wellington, church groups including the Christian charity, the United Learning Trust, universities, and even a Premier League football club, West Bromwich Albion - which is part sponsoring an academy in Sandwell in the West Midlands.

Sir Cyril, who has chaired the Specialist Schools Trust for eight years, said he was also anxious to promote boarding academies for vulnerable children from broken families. One is being set up in west London with links with Brunel University, which will provide campus accommodation. This academy will open in 2008.

He also envisages a network of 12 vocational academies which, he said, will aim at "providing the plasterers, plumbers and bricklayers of tomorrow".

A discussion paper by Sir Cyril, an architect of the earlier city technology colleges project devised by the Conservatives, makes it clear that the 170 schools singled out as failing or with serious weaknesses by Ofsted will be given "top priority in the conversion to academy status".

He lists specific criteria to determine whether a school qualifies for academy status. These include: n Exam and test performance should be well below the average of other schools in the neighbourhood at GCSE, A-level and national curriculum tests for 14-year-olds;

Clear evidence of under-performing in attendance, tackling bullying and in combating exclusions, plus poor leadership and a high turnover of staff; and

Poor state of school buildings, in urgent need of repair or demolition.