THE failures of the state education policy condemn generation after generation of poor young people to impoverished, often crim- inalised, unfulfilled lives.

Politicians know that there is something wrong, but have no real idea how to fix it. Their tendency is for more centralising directives and, recently, we had the Schools Secretary threatening to close “failing schools”.

His predecessors have talked about the importance of school meals, physical education, sex education, mathematics, science, and the three Rs. I doubt there is an aspect of schooling that a politician hasn't defined as “vital” to the nation's future.

In most areas of our lives, we quietly and subtly effect change with each of our individual decisions. If I start to buy my meat from the local butcher rather than my supermarket, and a small number of neighbours follow suit, both the butcher and supermarket owner react.

Certainly, a butcher wouldn't turn customers away because they weren't registered in his catchment area.

Instead, faced with changes in demand, the butcher will increase his supply and the supermarket will lower prices and improve range and standards to try to win back the customer.

In the education system, these small levers of control do not exist. As 93 per cent of schooling in Britain is state-run, the only way to effect change is to cajole politicians into implementing changes. The only way to effect change is to lobby a politician.

THE highly effective food supply system works because we have choice. Choice exists for many in the school system, but not all. Some send their children to private schools. More often, middle-class parents move to the catchment area of a good state school. This is often called a postcode lottery, but it's no lottery; if you can afford to buy in a good catchment you will gain access to a good school.

The people who miss out the most are the poor. They are stuck in a catchment where the quality of schools is low. Middle-class families will flee the catchment, depriving the school of the skills needed for improvement.

It was this vicious cycle, recognised by Sweden in the early 1990s, which led to the introduction of a system of school choice.

Britain has a lot to learn from the Swedish experience. Parents are given a voucher for their child's education, valid at any state, charity, church, or privately-owned school willing to offer a course for the value of the voucher. This creates a powerful dynamic with schools seeking to attract students rather than our system of parents begging good schools to take their children.

Failing schools in Sweden seldom close – they rapidly improve. Once 10 per cent of students leave a school, the owners are forced to make changes or lose the remaining 90 per cent. There are even provisions for parents to set up a new school if no local school meets their needs.

Because school choice involves the use of private schools, it is often interpreted as a system for the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth – the rich already have good schools. School choice in Sweden has benefited all students, including those who remained in the state-owned schools. The threat of competition forced poor state schools to raise their game.

We must free parents to decide on the solution that offers the greatest benefits. The best judges of what is in a child's interests are parents, not Whitehall bureaucrats worried about Government targets, political expediency and trade union relations.

Some will worry about extremism being taught in schools with too much freedom, but a compulsory school system and secular curriculum helped produce the 7/7 terrorists. There will be parental failures, but these are less frequent and catastrophic than state failures.

AN effective school choice system would allow parents to contribute money in addition to the state provided voucher. Paying something towards their child's education gives parents a strong motivation to ensure they are getting value for money.

With 5.5 per cent of Britain's GDP currently spent on education, we must ensure these vast sums are spent effectively and wisely and the process of paying something will raise parent's awareness of the expenditure of their child's school.

School choice will make the concept of a catchment zone for a school as absurd as a similar zone for a supermarket. Where there is demand, schools will open or expand to meet this. Innovation is often talked about in education, but falls well short of that achieved in other sectors of society. A 21st century office would be unrecognisable to a visitor from the 19th century, but the school system would not. A modern, liberalised school choice policy would allow true flexibility and customised education for all. Students with an aptitude for science or arts could pursue a course unimaginable in today's state system.

In Sweden, some schools are open until 10pm. This may not suit all parents, but it does suit some. School choice is about minority rights.

A few parents only may want their children to learn Latin or focus on music, but in a system of school choice these options may be available. Freedom from centralising control will create diversity and innovations as unimaginable today as the iPhone was when the telephone system was run by the GPO.

School choice was implemented by a centre-Right government in 1992, but was retained by a subsequent Left-wing government from 1994 because the system worked better than the past state-run approach. Moreover, when parents found the power they gained from choice, it became politically untenable to revert to a school system without real choice. For the sake of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, Britain should adopt a similar system.

■ Shane Frith is director of Progressive Vision, a liberal think tank arguing for less Government intervention in economic and social affairs. Its website is at www.progressive-vision.org