The schools – for pupils aged 14 to 19 – will be the first of their kind established since the 1950s.

Lord Baker, the former Conservative education secretary, who introduced the National Curriculum and GCSEs, is supporting the plans alongside senior Labour ministers.

The first new school will be opened in 2012 in the West Midlands, sponsored and run by Aston University. Students will take GCSEs in core subjects including English, mathematics and science along with a practical course such as engineering.

Lord Baker said other universities including Wolverhampton, Salford, Bradford, Hertfordshire, Leicester and Loughborough were considering backing similar schools.

“I want to see a network of 100 of these in the next four or five years,” he said.

The proposals are a throw back to old-style technical schools, which were opened alongside grammar schools and secondary moderns under Rab Butler’s 1944 Education Act. Although grammars and secondary moderns quickly became established, technical schools proved unpopular and few were opened.

In an interview, Lord Baker said: “Germany kept these schools. They are now more popular than grammar schools and one of the reasons why Germany is such an industrial nation is that they have these schools.”

Pupils will be able to transfer from conventional schools at the age of 14 to attend technical schools, which will offer specialist courses in areas such as bricklaying, manufacturing, fashion and information technology, he said.

“So much goes wrong with children’s education between 14 and 16 because everyone is going through one channel,” he said. “People say ‘How are children going to be selected for these?’ I say, they will select themselves. Once it becomes known that it is a choice for people who want to acquire skills alongside basic education there will be long queues for them.”

Lord Baker was also behind City Technology Colleges, a network of schools set up in the late 1980s specialising in computing and technology. They were the forerunners to Labour’s privately-sponsored academies which were championed by Tony Blair.

Vernon Coaker, the Schools Minister, said: "These are really early days,on this and we're right at the beginning of our thinking. The concept is a good one: 14-19 schools specialising in a couple of areas of diplomas and core GCSEs with links to local employers."

(www.eduwo.com, Jainlyn&Charlotte)