BRADFORD needs urgent measures to deal with its education failures, according to MP George Galloway.

The Respect MP for Bradford West is setting up a campaign called the Bradford Challenge - a reference to the London Challenge, a Government project which transformed education in the capital a decade ago.

And he is kicking off the initiative with a public meeting later this month.

Mr Galloway said: "This won't be just a talking shop, I'm determined it will be transformational."

The move comes after the district's education system received a battering last month.

Bradford's primary schools were placed 147th out of 152 in the league tables, while a separate Ofsted report showed more than half of secondary school students were studying at schools judged to be not good enough.

Mr Galloway said: "This is an abysmal result for parents and pupils and it's simply intolerable. It's the same year after year.

"We keep bumping along the bottom educationally, and what we need is a radical improvement. And now.

"We keep getting reassuring words and promises from the council and education officials but these are empty ones. Families in this city want results, not platitudes."

The meeting is being held at the Midland Hotel at 7pm on January 30.

Mr Galloway said he hoped parents, governors and teachers would come along to hear education experts put forward proposals to improve Bradford's schools.

Mr Galloway said he kept hearing that Bradford's results were bad because of the number of children who spoke English as a second language.

He said: "But Tower Hamlets in East London has the same demographics as here and its schools are now among the very best, largely because of the London Challenge.

"That can happen here if we can bring the expertise and resources to bear and deal with the vested interests who have been content to preside over failure."

Mr Galloway has invited Bradford Council's schools boss, Councillor Ralph Berry, to the meeting.

Cllr Berry (Lab) said he agreed the district needed a London Challenge-style project, and that he had only recently spoken to shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt about the idea.

But he accused Mr Galloway of electioneering, saying: "He's never there when you get an outstanding Ofsted in somewhere like Lilycroft [Primary] or St Edmund's Nursery school in his constituency."

The London Challenge, a five-year project which began in 2003, saw London's struggling school system get additional funding and its own dedicated Government minister.

School leaders got extra training, while teachers were given more support, and by 2010 there were more good and outstanding schools in London than in any other area of England.

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