PRIME minster Tony Blair this week heralded the dawn of a “post-comprehensive era”, urging an increase in the pace of reform.

One in four 11-year-olds still cannot read and write at the expected level and seven million adults do not have basic skills despite the strides made in Mr Blair’s five years in government,.

He called for “an end to the ‘one size fits all’ mass production services”. He said that schools must provide for pupils’ individual needs. Both school structures and working practices would need to change radically. “Why should not classroom assistants and IT specialists be every bit as important as teachers in the future?” he asked.

In a bid to answer attacks on too much bureaucracy and central control in public services, the Prime Minister promised to devolve more power to the professionals.

Mr Blair was under pressure following a damaging defeat by the unions over the controversial private finance scheme being used to build schools and hospitals and signs of growing unrest among public sector unions. But he received a warm reception from delegates as he went further than ever before in justifying reforms that reflect New Labour values.

The conference gave a similarly warm reception the following day to Estelle Morris. As the results of the A-level inquiry were announced in London, the Education Secretary won a 30-second standing ovation. She used her speech to re-inforce the reform message but made a greater attempt to win teachers’ support, emphasising that parents needed to take responsibility for teaching children right and wrong. “One child showing disrespect to one teacher in one school is one child too many,” she said.

With the conference slogan, “schools and hospitals first” hanging above her head, she praised the record of comprehensives but said that reform was needed, not because teachers had failed, but because they could do still better.

In a week when it was revealed that Sally Morgan, one of Mr Blair’s closest advisers, is paying for her son’s education (see box, right), Ms Morris admitted there are still state schools that parents avoid.

If that was aimed at the middle classes then her comment that comprehensives had failed to tackle the underachievement of working-class children was aimed squarely at the traditional left.

But not everyone in the audience was convinced.

Margaret Ewan, a party member from Buckinghamshire asked why pupils in selective schools in the county had not been given the benefits of a comprehensive education, that Ms Morris described.

Catherine Gregory, a primary teacher from Stowe warned action on workload was needed. “I am entitled to a life outside the classroom,” she said.

Teacher unions welcomed the lack of new initiatives at the conference and the recognition of problems caused by disruptive pupils.

But they warned that Mr Blair’s comments about teaching assistants would make negotiations on workload more difficult. Eamonn O’Kane said they would “set alarm bells ringing” among teachers.

Britain’s education reforms won praise from an unexpected source - former US president Bill Clinton, a guest speaker at the conference. But perhaps he was merely being polite: his speech on Wednesday afternoon had overshadowed Ms Morris’s earlier performance.

Tim Brighouse, Platform, 21