Bradford's schools shake-up will go ahead in full after the Council received approval to plug its £47 million funding gap.

The massive £171 million project will switch the district to a two-tier education system, doing away with first, middle and upper schools and replacing them with a primary and secondary system.

The Department for Education and Employment yesterday gave Bradford Council approval to borrow an extra £23 million.

The rest of the cash will be made up from capital receipts (profits from the sale of Council land or property) and procurement savings, delivered by the buying power of a so-called managing partner brought in to carry out the construction programme.

Today's news does away with months of uncertainty about the shake-up after it was revealed in December that cash requested by Bradford Council and allocated by the Government fell tens of millions short of what was needed to improve and refurbish schools.

The Council had severely underestimated the cost of the shake-up when calculating its bid.

The massive programme of building work will now be undertaken by the managing partner, a national or international company, and Bradford Council is set to decide who has won the huge contract early next month.

Council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood said: "This will be welcome news for every parent, governor and teacher in the district."

He added: "I am glad that we won't be forced to compromise on quality but will be able to provide a system which will give our children the first-class education they deserve. It means that we will now be able to complete the whole of the schools' reorganisation programme."

Coun Greenwood said: "We will give every school a start and finish date and we are hoping to give them a guarantee of that. The managing partner will have to give us that as part of the contract."

But unions say some children will still be stuck in temporary classrooms until at least 2002.

Ian Murch, of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said: "It's obviously good news that there's another £23 million that can be spent on buildings, and the politicians have done well to get the money.

"We hope it's enough but no-one yet knows because the work hasn't yet gone out to tender."

Project manager EC Harris has been working with the Council to appoint the managing partner, and contractors look set to be appointed by Easter.

Tenders have already been invited for an accelerated building programme for six secondary schools, and 13 primary schools are to be included in the same quick-build scheme.

David Horn, head teacher at Beckfoot Grammar School in Bingley, one of the schools on the accelerated building programme, welcomed the news.

"I am very pleased, obviously," he said. "We're delighted, that it means all Bradford's schools will get the buildings they need to benefit children across the district."

Councillor Susanne Rooney, executive member for education and lifelong learning, said the announcement meant uncertainty about buildings had been removed.

"Heads and governors made it plain when the proposals received Government approval (in March last year) that they wanted us to get on with changing from a three-tier to a two-tier system as quickly as possible regardless of the building programme."

Their pledge had been to put the system in place by September 2000, not to have all buildings completed, she added.

Chief executive Ian Stewart said: "Bradford Council is determined to continue raising educational standards and our number one priority is to ensure that we have a system which can deliver this."

An extra £1 million had already been given to schools this year with a further £11 million promised over the next three years.

The Council had realised there would be a shortfall last year and approached the Government to negotiate for help with finding the extra cash.

A spokesman for the DfEE said it had been working with Bradford Council to resolve the funding issue and the welfare of Bradford's schoolchildren had been at the centre of their concerns.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.