"It is completely unfair that even though these colleges are funded in the same way as sixth forms attached to schools and are teaching the same age children, they are treated differently under the VAT rules, " he told Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander.
Although learning-by-discovery is being phased out of schools, the government seems prepared to accept that it is right for nursery pupils: ministers are said to have noted that in the successful education systems of Switzerland and Hungary, pupils start in the nursery with play-based education and then switch to traditional teaching at the age of six or seven.