PENDLE MP Gordon Prentice told fellow MPs he was thrilled that West Craven High School, Barnoldswick, had been awarded technology college status.

The designation brings a government grant of £100,000 for capital expenditure and funding to help the school deliver curriculum and community plans. Mr Prentice asked education minister Jackie Smith how many secondary schools would have specialist school status by May 2001. Nineteen per cent, she said, of which 500 nationwide had already been designated.

But Mr Prentice said that, while the government was creating a complex set of technology, art, sport and language colleges, non-specialist schools could see themselves as branded failures. He said: "Why can't we have every school a specialist school with good teachers and resources to match?"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.