FORMER Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley has launched a stinging attack on Kent County Council’s selective system, labelling it an educational failure which betrays its children.

In an outspoken attack in an article in The Guardian newspaper, Lord Hattersley says the recent Ofsted report on standards in Kent showed that “secondary education in that county is a mess.”

County education chiefs dismissed the claim, and accused the peer of getting his facts wrong.

Lord Hattersley also takes to task the two previous Labour secretaries of state for education, David Blunkett and Estelle Morris, accusing them of keeping quiet about the causes of Kent’s failure.

“The revelation that the county betrays its youngsters in order to pander to the class-based dogma of selection is not new. Ofsted has commented on Kent’s failure before,” writes Lord Hattersley.

The article goes on: “There is no way of improving Kent’s results without ending selection. While the county concentrates its efforts on the education of a minority, the performance of the majority is, by definition, bound to be neglected

He urges the new secretary of state Charles Clarke, who commissioned the Ofsted report, to take the opportunity of redeeming “one of the most squalid episodes in Labour’s history” by ending selection.

Cllr Paul Carter, KCC's cabinet member for education, was dismissive. He said: “He should get his facts right. When you compare Kent with its statistical neighbours on the value-added measure from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 and through to GCSEs we are performing very well."