Martin Stephen, who is chairman of the Headmasters� and Headmistresses� Conference (HMC), proposed a standing commission of employers, universities, teachers and parents to decide changes to secondary schools. It would be comparable to the Bank of England�s Monetary Policy Committee, which sets interest rates. Government would be relegated to paying for its recommendations.

He said that the education system had suffered so much upheaval under recent governments that it now resembled �a wound operated on so often that all that is left is scar tissue�.   more »