SCOTLAND'S 20 worst secondary schools are to be taken into intensive care and offered special treatment in the form of additional resources provided by both the Scottish Executive and private philanthropists,

the first minister revealed

yesterday.

The schools to receive this treatment will be identified by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and by local authorities. Funding from the executive and the private sector would be in return for the schools pledging to improve their levels of attainment, discipline and attendance levels.

Headteachers would be obliged to take part in ''leadership programmes'' developed by the executive and private sector, although they could also be removed altogether and replaced with another senior management team.

The leadership initiatives are understood to follow the model of the Columba 1400 programme, which is aimed at inspiring people to develop particular skills, and would also involve successful business leaders in mentoring headteachers.

The move to identify the 20 secondary schools in ''most need of transformation'' forms part of a new executive initiative, called its ''schools for ambition'' programme.

Both Jack McConnell and Peter Peacock, education minister, said that the involvement of private sector entrepreneurs in state schools would not give the donors any say in the running of the schools.

Mr Peacock said: ''We're asking people to buy in, not to buy up.''

Mr McConnell also announced proposals to create more schools with centres of excellence, or specialist provision, in areas such as sport, art or music.

However, despite his insistence that such schools could be developed along the North Lanarkshire model of sport and music comprehensives - where there is no selection according to talent or ability - one executive source said that this would inevitably lead to some selection by the schools themselves.

Ministers were terrified of using the word selection, the source said, because they did not yet know precisely how the new schools would operate, and were worried about the term being misrepresented by the media. So when ministers used the phrase elitist selection, they were referring to selection on a broad spectrum of academic ability.

In practice, however, schools would need to select according to narrow aptitudes in order to allow pupils to pursue their talents. ''Logically, it's the only way the system would work,'' said the source.

Michael O'Neill, director of education for North Lanarkshire, has pioneered three sports comprehensives - St Margaret's High, Airdrie, St Maurice's High, Cumbernauld, and Braidhurst High, Motherwell, as well as one music comprehensive, St Ambrose High, in Coatbridge.

He said that, while there were early signs that the schools were raising attainment and attendance and raising ethos, there had been no increase in placing requests.

He sees the model as one of ''enhanced comprehensives'' where local authority, New Opportunities Fund, and Scottish Executive funds of money are used to increase staffing and improve equipment and facilities.

The schools, however, are also expected to act as a hub for after-school provision and links to feeder primary schools and neighbouring secondary schools so that everyone in the local area benefits.

He said that he hoped to find the funding to make Kilsyth Academy an ''expressive arts'' comprehensive and would like to create a European comprehensive specialising in modern languages and links to other schools, and also an ''enterprise'' comprehensive.

Unlike specialist schools such as Knightswood in Glasgow (dance), Douglas Academy, Milngavie (music) or Plockton (traditional music), where pupils selected for their talents follow a reduced general curriculum and spend more time on their area of talent, the North Lanarkshire specialist comprehensives have the full curricular options but also offer enhanced school activities after hours.

Mr McConnell also said the executive planned to introduce a new school inspection standard of excellence - a new fifth category building on the current standards of very good, good, fair and unsatisfactory - towards which it wants all schools to aim.

Alex Easton, president of the Headteachers' Association of Scotland, said there was no great support for the Executive using powers of intervention as it was felt that traditional inspections and the current support system already worked well.

However, he said that the experience of England - where ''failing'' schools are put into ''special measures'' - had shown that some schools improved, some remained the same and some actually deteriorated when there was outside intervention.

Ronnie Smith, general-

secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said: ''There continues to be a lot of room for explanation and clarification of what Mr McConnell has in mind. I'm not sure if this statement clears things up to any great extent beyond where we were.''

On the identification of the 20 secondaries to be placed on the schools for ambition programme, he said: ''How this is handled will be critical.

''If it is presented as 20 failing, dysfunctional schools which need to be shaken up, that is potentially going to be very hurtful and damaging to kids and staff in this school.

''If it is portrayed as recognising that some schools are faced with such disadvantage that there is not a level playing field and they deserve extra support to level up that disadvantaged position - positive discrimination - then yes, that would be good. But stigmatising schools, no.''

David Eaglesham, general-secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, described Mr McConnell's proposals as ''politically simplistic'' and ''too narrow in its focus''.

''They seem to be saying, 'Let's pick 20 off, but there is always going to be a twenty-first school - what happens to its resources?''