Clegg wants summer schools in wake of riots

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will pledge £50m a year for schools to run the scheme for 100,000 pupils making the “critical leap” from primary to secondary school.

In a speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham today he will say the riots showed too many young people had “fallen through the cracks” and had “lost touch with their own future”.

Secondary schools will decide which children to target with the summer schools, which will be voluntary but will aim to help struggling youngsters catch up and prepare them for challenges ahead.

Funding for the scheme would be delivered through the Pupil Premium, which is designed to target cash at poor youngsters.

The scheme is expected to cost about £500 per pupil.

Mr Clegg’s speech comes at the end of a conference which has mixed Business Secretary Vince Cable’s gloomy picture of the UK economy with a string of strong attacks on the Lib Dems’ coalition partners as the party battles to stamp its mark on the Government.

Mr Clegg yesterday admitted joining the euro would have been a “huge, huge error”, saying in “hindsight” Britain had had a lucky escape when it decided not to sign up to the single currency.

The Lib Dem leader was speaking after the International Monetary Fund) slashed the UK’s growth forecast and warned the global economy is in a “dangerous new phase”.

It says the UK will see gross domestic product grow 1.1 per cent in 2011.