The UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has re-affirmed his commitment to education in his first broadcast direct to the nation on Downing Street's revamped website.

He has chosen education as the subject of his first webcast, available on the website on Friday, declaring it is his "passion".

"We said it would be our number one priority. It is our number one priority," he says.

Part of Mr Blair's address focuses on the annual report from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), which was published earlier this week.

The report showed that school standards in England are generally improving, but secondary schools are not progressing as quickly as primaries.

The Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Chris Woodhead, said it was "deeply disturbing" that 13% of all pupils fail to gain a GCSE qualification in both English and mathematics, and 6.1% fail to gain any GCSE qualification at all.

In his address, Mr Blair says that the improvement in the primary sector, thanks to the national literacy and numeracy strategies, is "good news".

"I think we're well on the way, with the reduction in infant class sizes and the new money that's going into primary school buildings to make our primary schools a place where kids can pretty much be guaranteed the very basics they need for later life education."

'Poverty of ambition and aspiration'

But he acknowledges the need to improve standards in secondary education.

"In Britain, we've always been excellent at educating an elite well. The top 20% have always been pretty well educated.

"But for the majority, the standards just haven't been high enough. We've had a poverty of ambition and aspiration which has meant that large numbers of people leave school either without qualifications or without nearly the qualifications they need."

What is needed is a comprehensive system which allows everyone "the chance of an equal opportunity dependent on their ability, to do the very best that they can", he says.

"We've tolerated bad results and low expectations, particularly in some of the inner city comprehensives, for far too long.

"We need schools that all have strong head teachers, good discipline and ethos of hard work and learning, high quality motivated teachers, parents that get involved, good facilities - all these things are vital, and you can tell a good school the moment you walk through the door."

'Long way to go'

Mr Blair says that the government's plans to designate specialist status to about a quarter of secondary schools by 2003 will help raise standards.

Other reforms, such as the proposed performance-related pay system for teachers, and qualifications and training for head teachers, will also help build a "secondary school system for the future", he says.

"We've got a long way to go, but there's nothing more important in Britain than the sort of teenagers that emerge from our schools.

"And our aim has got to be that more and more of them get high quality, high class education that enables them to go into university or to develop their skills in a way that gives them the chance of fulfilling their own potential. And I think that's within our reach."