Yesterday's figures show 3 per cent of the 55.7 per cent figure is down to GNVQ passes. The qualification is to be phased out within two years.Of all schools, the Government's privately sponsored academies fare far the worst, with just 35.3 per cent of pupils obtaining five top-grade passes.. The school selected by Tony Blair for his three older children has been given the green light to carry on "selecting" pupils by interview in a ruling from his Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly. The London Oratory in Hammersmith, west London, is believed to be the only state-funded school in England that defied a government ban on using interviews to determine which pupils to admit. The move was opposed by a local primary school, Peterborough, which claimed the interviews favoured articulate, middle-class parents. The school objected to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator; it referred the decision to Ms Kelly.John McIntosh, its headmaster, said the interviews were necessary to determine the religious commitment of the parents to the school's ethos.
It is a Catholic school.The school insists it will not use the interviews just to admit Catholics - but wants to determine the religious commitment of families from other faiths and does not want just to rely on the recommendation of a priest or vicar.In her ruling, sent to the primary school and local education authority, Ms Kelly accepts the interviews are necessary to determine this. Her decision is bound to spark fury from parents opposed to covert selection who would prefer an independent ruling. They are likely to point out that not only is Ms Kelly a cabinet colleague of Mr Blair but she is also a committed Catholic who came under fire for her links to Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic group.n Barton grammar school in Canterbury, Kent, is set to become the first state-funded school to abandon A-levels in favour of the International Baccalaureate. Pupils will study seven compulsory subjects instead of the traditional three A-levels.. Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, lawyer and politician: born La Paz 21 June 1925; Vice-President of Bolivia 1966-69, President 1969; ambassador to Spain 1982-85; married Clemencia Santa Cruz (one daughter); died La Paz 19 October 2005. Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was a lawyer and politician who had the presidency of Bolivia thrust upon him when the flamboyant incumbent, General Ren?arrientos Ortu?was killed in a helicopter crash.
But the former Vice-President lasted only five months in the job, before he was overthrown in a military coup. His removal, by the commander of the army, General Alfredo Ovando, marked the beginning of an unusually unstable period even for Bolivia. But, from the early 1980s, Bolivia enjoyed two decades of uninterrupted and relatively stable civilian rule, thanks, in no small measure, to Siles Salinas' efforts, both as a lawyer and a human rights campaigner.Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was born in 1925, into a political family. His father, Hernando Siles Reyes, became President in the following year, and his half-brother Hern?Siles Zuazo served two terms, from 1956 to 1960 and from 1982 to 1985. Siles Zuazo, a much more weighty political figure than Siles Salinas, was one of the founders in 1941 of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), which led a major political upheaval in 1952, and played a prominent role in Bolivian politics for the rest of the century.The route taken by Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was rather different: he was a founder, in the late 1940s, of the tiny Social Democrat party (PSD), which was at the opposite end of the political spectrum to the MNR, representing the ancien r?me of tin barons and landowners that was overthrown by the MNR-led revolution of 1952.
