RACIAL divisions in schools pose a risk to the stability of communities, education secretary Alan Johnson has warned.

Towns such as Oldham are facing `ghettoisation', he says, because families from different ethnic minorities are refusing to let their children mix at school.

He told the M.E.N. that more work needed to be done to prevent schools from being labelled Asian-only or white-only.

He praised the work of twinning schemes pioneered in Oldham following the 2001 race riots.

The schemes have meant schools with predominantly Asian pupils sharing activities and classes with schools that have mostly-white students.

Last week, it was announced that British culture and history classes are to become a compulsory part of a revamped school curriculum.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson said that although recent GCSE results placed Manchester schools 147 out of 150 local authorities and bottom of the national truancy league, there had been improvements in local results.

Masked

The improvements, however, had been masked by overall better figures from across the country.

He acknowledged there had been problems in Manchester - there have been four chief education officers in less than two years and the current holder of the post, Alan Irving, has been on indefinite sick leave since November.

But he added: "There have been improvements here at a faster rate than across the country, but if everyone else's results are improving you are going to see your position stay the same.

"You've got a city here where over the last nine-10 years you've had a five per cent increase in children for whom English is not their first language."

He also gave support to cabinet colleague Ruth Kelly, the former education secretary and Bolton West MP, who came under fire after it emerged her dyslexic son was attending a private school.

Mr Johnson said: "Clement Atlee sent his children to a private school. Harold Wilson sent his children to a private school. The decision about where someone sends their children is very much for them."

The minister, who has been education secretary since May 2006, was speaking after a visit to a construction skills centre in Wigan, where students are taught brickwork, joinery and building.

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