Education: Minister sorry for list blunders over school building

The mistakes meant several schools which believed they would be able to go ahead with their building projects had their hopes dashed.

There were 25 errors in a Department for Education (DfE) list on Monday which set out which projects would be scrapped, reviewed and protected following the axing of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Mr Gove told Commons Speaker John Bercow: "I'm grateful to you and to the whole House for granting me the opportunity to make this statement, and once again to unreservedly apologise."

Mr Gove told the Commons on Monday that the BSF programme was to be abandoned, saying it had been beset by "massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy". Under the original scheme, set up by Labour in 2004, all 3,500 secondary schools in England were to be rebuilt or refurbished by 2023.

Following Mr Gove's announcement, the DfE published a list of 1,500 schools, detailing how their building plans would be affected.

It included 715 schools which were told their building projects had been cancelled.

But on Tuesday concerns were raised by former Schools Minister Vernon Coaker that the list contained a number of errors.

He demanded that Mr Gove come to the Commons to explain to MPs "what on earth has been going on". Yesterday, the DfE admitted the errors and published a corrected list. It means that an extra 10 schools – nine in Sandwell, West Midlands, and one in Doncaster – have now been told their projects have been stopped.

A further 11 schools' projects are now up for "discussion".

Mr Gove apologised for "inaccurate information" on the list which meant some schools were wrongly categorised. "In particular there were

schools which were listed as proceeding, when in fact their re-build will not now go ahead," he said.

Mr Coaker, now Shadow Education Minister, thanked Mr Gove for "finally" apologising.

He said: "It is right that he has apologised to this House but he should also apologise to all the pupils and parents and teachers expecting new buildings who have now had them cruelly snatched away. The chaos and confusion around this statement was frankly astonishing."

Students ready to work unpaid

Most students would work for free after graduation to get themselves a job, a survey suggests.

With new graduates facing a tough jobs market, two thirds of students (67 per cent) are unsure what they will do after leaving education but 86 per cent will consider doing an unpaid internship or work experience, according to a survey for discount website MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.

The poll questioned almost 1,400 people who have left or are about to leave education.