Toller Lane publishing firm Emerald is backing Education Bradford in a £15,000 deal.

The firm, which publishes journals on topics including accounting, education, general management and training, is to allow Education Bradford access to its resources.

Education Bradford is a private company which has been appointed to manage state schools in the Bradford area and deliver improved performance.

It is currently running a successful middle management course for teachers and aims to raise the standards and quality of education provision.

It hopes by developing teachers and school managers that education standards will be raised.

Emerald has offered the teachers and other educators involved in the Education Action Zone access to its fulltext database of 40,000 management articles.

It has also pledged to share its experience as a learning organisation through managerial presentations and workshops and to explain the content of Emerald journals to school managers.

The donation, which is worth more than £15,000 means 20 schools can now access Emerald resources.

Kathryn Toledano, director of business development for Emerald, said: "To back Education Bradford is a great fit for our organisation. We are Bradford-based and, through the resources we produce and distribute worldwide, we help to educate others.

"Bradford is a great city, but there are areas that need special attention.

"We hope that articles published in Emerald will provide Bradford's head teachers with ideas and insights to support their development of Bradford's schools."

Emerald, which has a portfolio of more than 130 management and information services titles, has offices across the globe including the US, Australia and Japan.

More than 80 per cent of its sales are made outside of the United Kingdom.

Emerald, which is the trading name of MCB UP Ltd, was originally founded by a group of business school academics in Bradford in 1967.