THE education minister yesterday announced plans for a major review of the school curriculum as part of a raft of education reforms, including the scrapping of national tests and national exam tables.

Peter Peacock, in his first major speech since he took up the post, highlighted the provision of choice for pupils. He said the review would initially look at the principles and framework of the curriculum for young people between the ages of three and 18.

The second stage of the review will examine the content of what children learn.

The decision to scrap the national tests and national exam tables was revealed in The Herald yesterday.

During a visit to the Scottish Education and Teaching with Technology (SETT) conference in Glasgow, he outlined the Scottish Executive's vision of a ''seamless'' curriculum which aimed to improve flexibility and choice.

He warned, however, that freeing up time within the curriculum for more choice would not be easy.

''The glib answer to almost every problem known to society is 'teach it in the curriculum'. Well it can't be like that,'' said Mr Peacock.

However, there were some things that all pupils had to be equipped with, namely competence in literacy and numeracy, he said.

Ronnie Smith, general-secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, described the review of the curriculum as ''potentially the most significant'' of Mr Peacock's an-nouncements.

He added, however, that it was not clear whether the review would mean a major departure from the principles laid down in the Munn and Dunning reports of the early 1980s.

These established the basic idea that the Scottish curriculum should be based on breadth, depth and balance and veered the Scottish education system away from early specialisation.

David Eaglesham, general-secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, warned against too much change. ''We need to be very careful that we don't reinvent the wheel on an almost annual basis.''

Michael O'Neill, director of education for North Lanarkshire Council, said he did not want the review to produce a detailed ''5-14 mark two'' but something closer to the broad vision of Norway's education system.

Fraser Sanderson, president of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, gave a broad welcome to Mr Peacock's proposals but warned that following upon the Mc-Crone job-sizing exercise and impending school management restructuring, the review might be seen by teachers as ''opportunism rather than a welcome challenge''.

His plans to replace national testing with a sophisticated form of scientific sampling, to be called the Scottish Survey ofAttainment (SSA), and the scrapping of centrally published school exam tables were welcomed by teachers, parents and local authorities.

However, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, the Scottish Tory education spokesman, said: ''It is vital that parents and pupils are given as much information as possible. School league tables and national tests provide such information.''

''The idea that some competition between schools to raise standards is a bad or divisive thing is exactly the sort of politically-correct nonsense that we have come to expect from this government.

''It is all very well for the minister to say that comparisons between schools are unnecessary because he believes in 'universal excellence', but the simple fact is that the universal excellence he talks of will simply never be achieved without the real reform of the comprehensive education system which parents demand and we would offer.''

He said it was imperative that any new system ''does not reduce the information available to parents and pupils. However I fear that the Scottish government will not consider information for consumers to be an important aspect of any new system.''

Fiona Hyslop, shadow SNP education minister, welcomed the review of national testing, adding: ''The SNP has been calling for the scrapping of league tables for many years and now the minister has admitted that these tables are totally meaningless, which shows that the Scottish government has been pursuing a meaningless policy for the last six years.

''I welcome the review of national testing but these tests must be scrapped sooner rather than later to give teachers time to teach and pupils peace to learn away from national government interference.''

Robin Harper, Green MSP and education spokesman, said: ''When I have asked in previous years when league tables were to be abolished, it was claimed that they did not produce school league tables. So how is it that Peter Peacock, education minister, is now able to scrap something that they were never doing in the first place?

''I hope that the executive's education policy is not underpinned by political spin.''