Scotland’s “one-size-fits-all” education system - where most schools are run by councils - has “dumbed down” the ambitions of schools and teachers, according to the shadow education secretary.

Liz Smith, the Scottish Conservatives’ education spokeswoman, also poured doubt on the Scottish government’s aim to close the attainment gap, saying the goal was impossible “because human intelligence is not like that”.

Ms Smith, who has been an MSP for 10 years and held the education brief since being elected, said: “I think you can offer much better opportunity for youngsters with [a] more diverse schooling network and I also think the other problem we have is a culture of conformity that has dumbed down people’s ambitions rather than raising them.”

She called for schools to be given powers to opt out of local authority control completely, saying there were many strong state sector schools but “not as many as there ought to be”.

Ms Smith added: “I don’t think you should go by ideology; I think what matters most is what works. But at the moment there are quite a large number of schools in the state sector that are not able to get these better results because of the one-size-fits-all approach that has been very much part of local education authority thinking for a very long time.”

The Scottish government has said that it wants more decisions about education to be taken at school level and its consultation on how schools should be run ended earlier this year. But the administration has come under fire for a delay to the Education Bill that would usher in some of the changes, to allow time for education secretary John Swinney to “chew over” some 1,100 consultation responses.

‘Radical reform’

Ms Smith questioned whether the planned reforms would go far enough and said “radical reform” was needed - but she feared that this would be “held back” by council resistance.

The more radical reforms that she envisioned could involve new academies or groups of parents being encouraged to take over the running of schools. She also wanted to see the emergence of more schools like Newlands Junior College in Glasgow, which was set up by businessman Jim McColl and caters for secondary pupils who are seen to be failing to achieve their potential.

Ms Smith - who taught for 16 years in the independent sector before entering politics - also called for the new National qualifications to be scrapped (see box, below) and claimed that the government’s goal of closing the attainment gap was impossible to achieve.

She said: “It’s possible to narrow [the attainment gap] but I don’t think it’s ever possible - it does not matter what education system you have - to completely close it. There are two things wrong with that [goal]: it can never happen because human intelligence is not like that, you will always have a gap. Secondly, the danger is you actually bring down the standards of those at the top.”

Ms Smith said it was a great disappointment to her that Scotland was not “the envy of the world” when it came to getting the basics right, such as good literacy and numeracy. She added: “The greatest gift you give any child is the ability to read, write and count, and we are failing too many children on that basis.”

Teaching unions and primary headteachers organisation the AHDS are against the transfer of powers away from local authorities.

Ms Smith argued that headteachers were not free to fully express their views because they were still employed by councils. But AHDS general secretary Greg Dempster denied this, saying only a “minority” of headteachers wanted more autonomy.

Council umbrella body Cosla said that more young people than ever were achieving National 4, 5 and Higher qualifications.