Parents 'should pay for schools

Most parents should be made to pay towards their children's schooling, in an extension of the "co-payment" principle used by Tony Blair to justify university top-up fees, the prime minister's biographer, Anthony Seldon, will say tonight.

Dr Seldon, headmaster of the independent Brighton College and a respected contemporary political historian, proposes the end of universal free state education with the introduction of "partnership schools", financed jointly by parents and the state.

Three-quarters of children would go to these schools, with parents contributing according to their means, he will tell a conference of independent school bursars and financial advisers. About a fifth of the poorest children would go to schools financed entirely by the state, while a handful would go to entirely fee-paying schools.

Such a reform would anger teaching unions and many parents, and goes well beyond current government thinking.