The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper

I AM not sure whether the government's decision to cream off 100,000 bright pupils in inner city schools for special tuition is not just another gimmicky idea on the lines of its summer schools to improve literacy and the fudgy education action zones to reverse under-achievement.

We are, after all, still waiting for real signs of standards going up.

But I do welcome this departure for another reason - that of its recognition of the value of selection in education.

It has, of course, got the levellers in the staff room hot under the collar - fearing that it is the thin end of the wedge for comprehensive education and its central premiss of mixed-ability classes that have been both a recipe for mediocrity and a smokescreen for poor teaching.

And, certainly, this new move cranks up the assault on them that began nearly two years ago when, launching his "zero tolerance" assault on failing schools and bad teachers, Tony Blair called for the introduction of "setting" in which children are grouped according to aptitude to allow them to develop as fast as they can.

What, after all, is wrong with separating the clever kids from the plodders and dunces who would hold them back? They only get a once-in-a-lifetime chance when it comes to schooling and they have a right to the best the system can deliver. That's why the government should brush aside all the pious socialist-equality claptrap coming from heads and teachers moaning about this new departure.

Perhaps it is going about it by stealth - for ideological reasons - but if this is a back-door way of restoring the grammar school style of education, if not the actual grammar schools themselves, the government will be doing the countless thousands of children who are eager to learn a favour.

Worried that the already devalued A-levels might be watered down even more under government plans to broaden the sixth-form curriculum, the heads of leading independent schools were reported this week to be threatening to set up their own rival exam and examination board to preserve academic standards.

I take no credit for this even though this move was suggested in this column a long time ago. After all, when droves more young people are passing A-levels than ever before - and in joke subjects like Theatre Studies - it would strike all but a dunce that action has long been needed to stop the exam being dumbed down and standards slumping.

Let's have these real alternatives to keep the wrecking trendies at bay.

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